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Fire victims start rebuilding juggis

Children rummage through rubble for valuables, as others are busy making temporary shelters in Bhubaneswar on Friday.

BHUBANESWAR: A day after a major fire rendered hundreds homeless in Muslim Sahi, a slum in the heart of capital city, small shelters started coming up on heaps of ashes and demands for provision of concrete structures for the slum dwellers gained momentum on Friday.

Victims did not lose time and started rebuilding the jhugis even as the administration made temporary arrangements of food and shelter for them at different places.

Since the administration earlier had declared the slum ‘illegal’, they showed the urgency to stick to the patch of valuable land. Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Khurda district administration also began to make polythene sheets available to the victims.

Meanwhile, Basti Surakshaya Manch (BSM), an association of slum dwellers, demanded permanent rehabilitation and financial assistance for the victims under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

"The rehabilitation and relief made available to fire victims has largely been on ad hoc basis. Some non government organisations were roped in to carry out the relief operation. Orissa Municipality Act as well as state relief code should be amended so that administration could be involved in the process whenever there is a tragedy," BSM advisor Biswapriya Kanungo said.

Administration should continue to supply cooked food for another 15 days and provide rations on subsidised rate, Mr. Kanungo demanded. Meanwhile, BMC has kept itself at a distance to infuse planning into the fire-ravaged zone.

"This is a policy matter. The slum is an unauthorised one. Decisions on permanent solutions could be taken only in the highest level," BMC Commissioner Aparajita Sarangi said.

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