Tamil Nadu - Nagapattinam   

Permanent houses lack proper sanitary facilities

K. Subramanian

Need for urgent study on amenities in Nagapattinam

`NOT IN RIGHT SHAPE': Temporary toilets built for the permanent houses in Nagapattinam.

Nagapattinam: There is an urgent need to study the drainage and sewage facilities in the permanent houses built for tsunami victims in the district.

Any delay will have a disastrous impact, according to an IAS officer looking after tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction activities.

Now, owing to bad planning and designing and execution of the toilets in the permanent houses built for the tsunami victims, the NGOs feel that open defecation is far better, which the fishermen were used to all these years.

The crisis management effort of the UNICEF, as a last resort, opened `temporary toilets' early this month in the permanent houses in Thethi village, hardly a km from the Collectorate.

A visit to the permanent shelters built by various agencies has revealed some shortcomings which if not corrected early threaten to make many of these shelters man made slums.

The district administration last month announced that 50 per cent of the proposed 18,220 permanent houses in 76 locations had been completed. The progress of the construction even after 27 months since the tsunami was slow due to a various reasons. It took almost nine months for the Government to take a policy decision to construct the houses within the 500-metre coastal regulatory zone, as suitable lands were not available in the affected villages.

Heavy rains in October 2005 had resulted in hurried approval of 10 designs for the houses.

The NGOs when started construction in December 2005 found that the cost of all construction materials had gone up steeply. Further transportation costs of sand, cement, iron, bricks, etc. too was high due to diesel price hike and the non-traversable terrain through which they had to be taken to the identified sites.Infrastructure facilities like roads, water supply and particularly sewage and drainage facilities are not only unsatisfactory, but also alarming.

At Panangudi village, near here, the 225 new permanent houses built and handed over to the tsunami victims did not have hygienic drainage and sewage facilities. These houses too had only pit latrines that are not suitable for high water table sandy coastal areas.

Sewerage water (toilet water) is leaking out or overflowing out of the septic tanks. Residents are forced to drain the black water from the soak pits in their houses and dispose them at far off places. In the Thethi tsunami housing colony, the NGO that had constructed a pit latrine wisely closed the outlet of the toilet and told the residents six months ago not to use them. The approved design of the toilet also had a bathroom inside the toilet to make matters worse.

The UNICEF that has been performing an exemplary job in ensuring health and hygienic conditions in the temporary as well as permanent shelters was left with no other option but to construct temporary toilet even in permanent shelters for more than 600 residents.

In several colonies the NGOs were forced to suspend the construction of pit latrines during rainy and other seasons since water started sprouting out. Naturally, most of the pit latrines are unworkable, as they had no proper soak or leach pits.

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