Earthquake Relief

Survivors Need Half-Way Homes

By ADITI KAPOOR

WHEN the first rains lash the earthquake-stricken areas
of rural Gujarat, many people may not be able to run for
cover. The state has not been able to provide temporary
shelter for the lakhs rendered homeless by the January 26
upheaval. The GI sheets provided as part of relief
distribution have been rejected because the metal sheets
absorb too much heat in the arid, sun-drenched region. The
Kutch administration had advised the state against
distributing GI sheets but this was ignored. Meanwhile, the
shelter policy solely focuses on providing seismic-proof
and/or cyclone-proof permanent dwellings and the first
instalment for this is being disbursed on a war-footing
because of the approaching monsoons. However, this has
not been accompanied by adequate dissemination of
information on government packages and technology for
safe shelters.

Though the loss is huge - over 3.7 lakh houses flattened
and another 6.5 lakh partially damaged - the state is not
short of money. The World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank have promised over $2 billion for
housing alone. In fact, in the next two years Gujarat is
going to spend an amount equal to its decennial budget on
permanent housing. Private funds have also poured in. For
instance, in Kutch - the worst affected district with 2.9
lakh completely damaged houses - over 200 private
agencies are willing to extend help. The Confederation of
Indian Industry (CII), for instance, is ready to shell out Rs
90,000 for each house. The Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) in
partnership with the international non-governmental
organisation, CARE, has offered to build 10,000 dwellings
in 30 villages. The United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) is contributing Rs 42,000 for each
quake- and cyclone-resistant demonstration house being
built through Abhiyan, a network of 22 NGOs. Villagers
receiving housing support from private agencies are still
entitled to half the government compensation and, in most
cases, stand to gain by opting for this unique and
progressive public-private initiative.

In fact, the state's rehabilitation shelter policy, influenced
by several NGOs, is well-intended. The policy is flexible
and `empowering' because it extends funding and
technological help to house-owners as opposed to
tendering for contract-driven mass construction. It may be
recalled that the latter strategy failed in Latur after the
1993 quake when villagers rejected the `suburban' houses
which, for instance, had no semi-covered areas to store
agricultural produce or workplace for carpenters or
weavers.

The policy envisages working with different partners like
grassroots organisations, corporates, religious associations
and other civil society groups. It also promotes use of local
skilled/unskilled labour as well as local building materials
rather than, for instance, pre-fab technology that was
advocated by Ficci immediately after the quake. In an area
where unemployment is a major problem, this policy is
expected to give a boost to the local building industry.

Yet, the state has made two mistakes: one, driven by the
World Bank, it has embarked upon disbursing cash for
building permanent seismic-proof housing even before
enough awareness about seismic-proof technology and
training has been passed on to the people. In Latur, for
instance, many villagers replaced RCC bands with plaster
belts because they did not understand that RCC bands
prevented walls from cracking in an earthquake. The
Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority, silent on
the information dissemination aspect, should extensively
use radio, television and the vernacular press for this
purpose. Recently, in collaboration with the UNDP, the
Kutch administration has started distributing information
posters in local languages, and has held a few block-level
awareness meetings with local officials and villagers.

Two, the time lag between evolving the shelter policy and
communicating it at the field level has created quite a bit of
confusion and made NGO involvement difficult. This is
because agencies wanting to `adopt' affected villages for
rehabilitation are required to get an official approval from
the gram sabha (assembly of village adults). But the
general impression, particularly in Kutch, is that if NGOs
and other private agencies build houses, the villagers will
have to forego the government compensation. By omitting
to use its machinery for spreading awareness about its
shelter policy, the government has placed NGOs in the
difficult position of having to explain government schemes
to the people. While the more rooted NGOs have sought
the help of the administration, outside agencies like the CII
are at their wits' ends as to how to get gram sabha
approvals. In many villages, NGOs have been asked to
turn back.

Villagers are also wary of outside agencies because these
offer material and wage labour. Most villagers prefer
taking cash from the government and then diverting it to
pay off old debts or buy agricultural inputs. This, even
though they can get the next instalment only if they show a
half-constructed house on the ground. However, most
villagers, particularly the better-off ones, are confident of
building a house themselves. In fact, they had started
removing debris and building temporary shelters in the first
month itself but stopped when the government announced
that they would be given cash to build single rooms. When
no guidelines for building seismic-proof dwellings reached
villagers even after nearly two months, they reverted to
building temporary dwellings in a way best understood by
them.

In fact, livelihood and short-term safe shelter, rather than
permanent houses, are given priority by villagers. Villagers
preferred to wait till after the first sowing season before
building permanent dwellings. Many villages like Doravan
and Dinara in the parched and dusty Banni area of Kutch
have become ghost villages because everyone has
migrated in search of water and livelihood. Here, families
are in no hurry to return to build permanent dwellings.

An interim policy is needed to see the villagers through the
first monsoons after the earthquake. Particularly since
damage re-assessment is also underway in various places,
including Kutch. This might mean mandating that the cash
disbursed be used for temporary shelter. Temporary
shelter need not be wasteful expenditure, as is being
proved by Swati, an NGO working in Surendranagar
district. Swati is building extendable one-room
seismic-proof shelters at a nominal unit cost of below Rs
8,000, with re-usable local material and local skills. Only
labour costs will go `waste' if these units are later altered
to make permanent houses. Initiatives like these should be
kept in mind while taking a fresh look at the state's shelter
policy.

In Brief

* Gujarat's focus on permanent shelter is well-intended but
misguided

* Much-needed temporary units have not been provided

* Interim policy needed to see people through the monsoon