Kerala - Alappuzha   

Revenue Minister visits relief camps

Staff Reporter

‘Relief operations not in right direction’

ALAPPUZHA: Revenue Minister, K.P. Rajendran, has said that relief operations in tsunami-hit areas of the district, particularly Arattupuzha and Alappad, were yet to move in the right direction.

Speaking to the media on Friday during a visit to Arattupuzha, 55km from here, Mr. Rajendran said whatever had been done so far did not set right the problems faced by the people here even by a fraction. “This is my third visit to Arattupuzha, and each time the complaints are only getting bigger in number,” he said.

The Minister was also in for a shock when the residents of tsunami camps here showed notices served upon them by banks for “not repaying loans”. “Several banks had come forward to give these people Rs.5,000 each after the tsunami. The people here considered this as donations. But now they are being told that these were loans and that they have to repay them. From what I have learnt, it looks like plain cheating,” Mr. Rajendran said, issuing directions on the spot to District Collector, V.K. Balakrishnan, to look into the issue and submit a report within a week.

As for delay in construction of houses for those who had lost theirs in the tsunami and the pending demand for a sea wall to weather the regular threats of sea erosion and tidal wave attacks, the Minister said the first instalment of tsunami funds from the Union Government would arrive next month.

“The construction of the remaining houses and the sea wall will definitely begin in August. More intervention is needed here because I have seen that some of the houses built for rehabilitation are unfit to live in.

Several organisations have also not kept their promises of building houses. But the Government is not interested in any witch hunting and we will do all that is necessary here at the earliest,” he told the public who had gathered in hundreds around him.

The Minister called up officials concerned in Thiruvananthapuram to immediately issue orders for free rations to those living in relief camps after the recent tidal wave attack. He also listened to all the locals who wanted to talk to him about their sufferings.

The State Government was pressuring the Union Government to waive all loans that the tsunami-hit people had taken before the disaster struck, he said.

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