The Hindu Business Line : Towards focused rehabilitation

WHEN the world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years erupted underwater off the northwest coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Sunday, 26 December 2004, little did fishing communities in the coastal villages of Kerala, thousands of kilometres from the epicentre of the quake, realize that their lives would be changed perhaps forever in the wake of the walls of water that barrelled across the Indian Ocean, killing close to 220,000 people in half a dozen countries across South and Southeast Asia as well as parts of east Africa, with thousands more missing or unreachable.

This was a kind of globalisation with a perverse twist. For a State that has had a long and hoary tradition of trade links with seaports around the world, Kerala was rudely reminded that in today's shrinking context, almost everything is inter-related, even geographically. The painful irony is that it took a tsunami - triggered by a magnitude 9 earthquake - to strike home that reminder.

True, only a small stretch of coastline bordering the Kollam-Alappuzha districts on the Arabian sea coast was affected, and Kerala's damage is considerably less severe than neighbouring Tamil Nadu's, where 376 villages and nearly 9 lakh people were affected, close to 1.3 lakh houses damaged and nearly 8000 lives lost.

In Kerala, official government estimates (www.kerala.nic.in/tsunami.htm) put the number of deaths due to the tsunami at 180, and houses damaged, at 5,805.

The impacts of the tsunami on the fisherfolk are the most severe, resulting in long-term consequences as loss of lives is compounded with loss of homes, destruction of village infrastructure and total loss of livelihood (due to loss of fishing equipment).

Yet out of tragedy must arise preparedness and a new resoluteness. As relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction work continues, the key issue in Kerala now is the welfare of the populations in the unorganised small-scale sector - both traditional artisanal fishing communities and those operating small-scale mechanised craft.

Kerala is currently operating 150 relief camps in the tsunami-hit coastal regions. Reports from the six centres at Arattupuzha panchayat reveal that a large number of those living in relief camps seem eager to start their lives afresh and get back to normal working lives.

That seems to be the critical need - to get people back to earning decent livelihoods, not depend on the crutches of aid and State largesse. The Kerala government has announced that free rations had been distributed to 3.52 lakh out of the 3.87 lakh eligible persons.

Construction of houses for those who had lost them was being supervised by the Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA), and would be completed in three months.

The design for houses at Arattupzha and Alappad - the worst-hit areas of Alappuzha district - would be finalised shortly. Each house might cost about Rs. 1.5 lakhs. Altogether, 4,000 new houses will have to be built and another 2,000 houses will need urgent repairs.

Yet, even as the State Cabinet sanctioned Rs. 13.86 crores to the State Cooperative Federation for Fisheries Development (Matsyafed) for supply of boats and nets to fishermen who had lost them in the tsunami tragedy, there are still precious little authentic figures and statistics on the real extent of the damage - the quantity of craft and gear lost, for instance.

Some fishworkers' organizations are currently engaged in survey and census operations, but it is shameful that almost a month into the tragedy, very little of definitive quantification has been made.

This situation is in sharp contrast to what happens when a crisis hits the organized sections of Kerala's fisheries industry - like the export-oriented shrimp aquaculture sector, for instance.

Kerala's traditional small-scale fishing communities have demonstrated in the past that they are as capable as the industrial trawl sector of contributing to the nation's foreign exchange earnings through less intensive, ecologically friendly fishing techniques. It is time they and their collective wisdom were acknowledged and paid back in full measure.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page