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Ukhimath victims struggle in the absence of rehabilitation

Five months after landslides changed the shape of the Himalayan Ukhimath region, hundreds of families are still struggling to survive in the absence of adequate rehabilitation measures. The problem has been compounded by the chilly weather.

''It would have been better if I had also vanished in the tragedy," says 38-year-old Chander Singh of Paundhar village who has a large family to support. He is just one of the hundreds of survivors, many of whom have lost their land, houses, cattle and, most importantly, the earning members in the family, in the tragedy that struck the area on August 11, 1998.

The landslide, which buried the entire families of four of Chander Singh's neighbour, wiped out the villages of Paundhar, Barafia and Raulekh and left many other villages uninhabitable.

Dilip, the only able bodied survivor of the family of nine has to support a blind father, a spastic brother and six children, and he had hardly Rs 1000 left of the relief amount. Before the landslide, his family owned at least two acres of land, community forests, citrus plants, cattle, sheep and a secure shelter before the calamity, says Rai Singh Rana who works for families affected by the disaster.

Though large-scale relief and rescue work was organised by both the government and non-government organisation immediately after the tragedy that struck the Madhu Ganga valley, lack of long-term rehabilitation efforts had left affected families in the cold.

"It was like a mela, with rows of trucks full of relief material coming to Ukhimath," says Prahalad of the Bharat Sewa Ashram about the relief efforts immediately after the disaster. But now, with that phase behind it, Ukhimath is a desolate place, and there is no sign of rehabilitation or reconstruction.

Lack of land is the most serious problem. Where once houses and terraced field lined the mountain sides, there was an ugly tumble raw earth and loose rock. The river too has changed course.

Meanwhile, all except one relief camp established after the tragedy were closed and the people there have no option but to take shelter with relatives in other villages and nearby towns. In the only remaining relief camp the condition is deplorable with three families sharing one room. It's a better situation than sometime earlier, when five families were allocated to each room.

Since no alternative land exists for rehabilitation, over a hundred affected families were still trying to find some land on which to construct a shelter before snow and rain hit the Himalayan region.

But due to the sudden scarcity of land in the area, real estate prices have shot up. And with money reserves already running low, purchasing land is often the last thing on their mind.

Virender of Mansoona village spend Rs 15,000 on 400 square feet of land close to the affected area. Though he has compromised by not using cement and by not building a kitchen or a latrine, he will need Rs 45,000 more to construct two rooms on the tiny plot of land.

Virender says government officials and politicians made promised much and delivered little. Virender, who has already spent most of the compensation amount on meeting his family's needs, was desperate to build a house before rains set in. Like many others, he has yet to find agricultural land or an alternate livelihood.

The people of the area also complained of confusion in the administration regarding the resettlement and rehabilitation work. As many of the areas in the Himalayan region were declared unfit for habitation, the disaster affected people were hunting all around to find a land for resettling themselves. During the last few months they have been pleading to various gram sabhas (village panchayats).

Meanwhile, the people have been asking that forest land be made available for house construction but the forest department apparently does not only refuse that, but even refuses to let them touch the trees brought down in the landslide.

The pradhan of Giriya village proposed, "Let the government take over all the private land in the Madhu Ganga valley and, in exchange, provide land under the control of the forest department. The department could afforest and conserve the area by growing deodar trees. In 50 years it will pay back the government many times over."

Ramamurthi Sreedhar, managing trustee of the Academy for Mountain Environics, whose team is working with the displaced people, providing tips to them on constructing earthquake-resistant buildings with local raw materials, says, "With support from several corners and spontaneous relief efforts from NGOs the people were able to survive the immediate aftermath.

"But, now when it is time to rehabilitate these people, there is absolutely no mechanism. This has been the case with most recent disasters. We can't afford to leave at this state of affairs. We will have to gear ourselves up and devise a proper rehabilitation process and create institutional arrangements for disaster mitigation."

The academy is working out a plan to build a settlement based on the experience of the team members in rehabilitation in different parts of the country, including reconstructing an earthquake-affected village in the Uttarkashi district of the state.

"We'll pool in the wealth of knowledge and concern to make it possible in the current context," Sreedhar said.

"The problems here are different from those of earthquake in Uttarkashi where even after the disaster the land was still available. One just had to do better site selection and use appropriate construction techniques. Here the land has disappeared and no alternative exists," B Shankar Thapliyal, who is also associated with the effort.

UNI

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