By Debabrata Patra
Cyclone Fani has caused widespread devastation in Odisha.
Early evacuation of of 1.4 million people has resulted in saving of lives of people. But now the challenge is to revive the lives and livelihoods of the people affected by the cyclone.
My recent trips to the slums in Bhubaneswar and to villages in Puri revealed that people have started reviving on their own. But not all can do this. A devastated and discriminated Dalit household having no land and other assets, and depending on wage labour alone will find it really difficult to get on its feet. Similarly a single woman and an old aged couple living in the village with no one to look after them will also find difficult to rebuild their house.
The challenges of heat wave following Cyclone Fani and impending rains pose great challenge for the restoration work. Thatched houses which are partially damaged and in which people are still staying pose great danger to them. Not only it is unbearable to stay in it during the heat wave but also in the upcoming rains, the walls of these houses might even collapse endangering the lives of people.
Nowadays people are running after the compensation packages, which are obviously a great help to people. But now it is important to start the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MGNREGS) in the villages to clean the debris from the village, agricultural fields, ponds and rebuild their houses. One thing the officials need to ensure that the wages needs to be paid in time at the end of the 15 days otherwise people will not turn up for work. Also government should think of increasing the MGNREGS to 200 days for the current financial year.
Housing
The compensation packages, which are very much required, also need to be reworked. The current livelihood/ shelter compensation packages hardly covers 40 per cent to 50 per cent (in some cases it may be higher) of the costs required to rebuild/ replace the shelter or livelihood assets.
The present package offers Rs.95,000 for a fully damaged, Rs.5,200 for a partially damaged and Rs.3,200 for a moderately damaged house. The housing compensation is inadequate both in urban and rural areas.
In all cases, the thatched houses or polythene-roof houses needs to be replaced by pucca houses. This costs about Rs.3 lakh plus Rs.12,000 as cost for toilet construction. These sort of pucca houses with disaster risk reduction (DRR) component (this included a raised platform) were given after Cyclone Phailin in 2013 with the support from the of Odisha government under the Odisha Disaster Rehabilitation Project.
In the case of Cyclone Fani also, we need to think of rehabilitation in such a comprehensive way instead of a stopgap arrangement to ensure that the houses are not blown away in another cyclone.
However, even for temporary revival people need anything around Rs.10,000 to Rs.15,000 even if they reuse some of the materials of earlier house and use their own labour to rebuild the thatched house. The current compensation of Rs.5,200 and Rs.3200 for partially and moderately damaged house is also inadequate in this regard. And most importantly, the temporary revival too needs to be done quickly before the onset of monsoon.
Reviving livelihood
Similarly, the boat and net compensation for fibre reinforced platic boats (FRPs) – Rs.40,000 and Rs.20,000 – is also highly inadequate. Some of the costs will not even cover 50 per cent of the repairing/ replacement costs. As a result, people will be forced to take loans from moneylenders at an exorbitant interest to bridge the gap. So it is important for the government to give a realistic compensation package for the loss of livelihood.
In case the livelihood packages are not sufficient to cover the costs, there are several ways to address the problems. One is to find out if any agency or corporate can cover the additional cost of replacement of livelihood assets, for example boats. If this is also not possible, it is important to ensure that banks give low interest loans to the affected fishermen so that they can rebuild their assets like boat and net.
Betel vines are one of the popular livelihoods in Puri districts, which are badly devastated in the recent cyclone. This is also a very lucrative livelihood option for the people here. The compensation package announced by government is Rs.18,000 is laudable as this is not covered under central guidelines. But people say that for an average size betel vineyard it would require at least Rs.35,000 to rebuild it. These gaps in compensation packages will create unnecessary loan burden people.
Similarly for poultry, the compensation announced is just Rs.50 per bird, which is subject to a limit of 100 birds. This is awfully less and people have demanded to enhance it to Rs.10,000 for 100 birds or Rs.300 for big birds. Similarly cattle shed compensation is given as Rs.2,100 whereas it requires at least Rs.30,000 to build a cattle shed.
Also it defies logic why the compensation differs from state to state (at least the ones with similar landscape) and also within the state at different times. The compensation for human death was Rs.10 lakhs per family but now in this cyclone it is Rs.4 lakhs. The cattle shed compensation was up to Rs.1 lakhs Andhra Pradesh during Cyclone Titli but now it is just Rs 2,100 in Cyclone Fani. The list is endless. These needs to be standardised across the country and it should not vary this much.
The relief code which has a colonial hangover needs to be replaced by resilience code. The relief code historically has always put forward a minimalistic approach ensuring mere survival of people. But this is not is expected in a welfare state of post independent India. It is time to reject the updated versions of these colonial Famine Codes and National/State Disaster Response Fund norms as principal guide to public authorities in times of natural disaster in free India.
Moreover in a state like Odisha which is facing cyclone, floods at regular intervals, we need to ensure that the compensation package is so designed that it should be adequate, relevant and timely. Moreover it should help in not only revival but also resilience building of the communities. The resilience building is required not only in the infrastructures but also in rebuilding their houses and livelihoods.
Let’s build a new Odisha by building the resilience of the communities affected by Cyclone Fani.
(Debabrata Patra heads non-profit Action Aid in Odisha)
