The impact of aid, and the need for a balanced approach
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COMMENTS 
There are over 500 NGOs in 13 villages of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry working to help the tsunami affected. But, the livelihood measures undertaken by these organisations have often created more anomalies than they have brought relief to some fishing communities
Nagapattinam town is abuzz with trucks carrying building material and cranes meant to help fishermen build huge steel boats. The post-tsunami rebuilding work progresses in a hurry.
A few kilometres towards the sea, in the rebuilt Akkarepettai village, Aniyappan, a fisherman, stands outside his temporary shelter amid small pieces of wet wood left to dry in the sun. Mangled and twisted metal pieces gathered from the rubble of his destroyed home are stacked together in sacks.
Despite the flow of aid, Aniyappan finds precious little to sustain his family of seven members. "How long can you survive on a small catch," he asks. "First, they gave Rs 5,000 as compensation for house damage. Then came the next batch of Rs 3,000. It is the eleventh month since the disaster struck us. Not a penny has been saved and we live from day to day."
Travel down the coast and you will hear similar stories of misery from estuarine fisherwomen, shrimp-collectors and fish-sellers who have been ignored in the flurry of aid.
In stark contrast, studies in Kanyakumari show that there has been a 25% increase in the number of boats and catamarans since the tsunami, a result of the rehabilitation effort. In some villages fishermen join different overlapping groups so that they can individually own boats that are actually given for a group. There is a thriving market in resold boats and catamarans.
The livelihood-regeneration scenario is, in fact, a mosaic of contrasting tones. There are over 500 NGOs in 13 villages of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry working to help the tsunami affected. But, the livelihood measures undertaken by these organisations have often created more anomalies than they have brought relief to some fishing communities. "The reasons are oversupply of aid due to lack of coordination, bad judgement on the part of both the government and the NGOs, and the greed of the people," says V Vivekanandan, chief executive of the South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies (SIFFS). As a result, some people without any voice or visibility have been left out of the livelihood-regeneration process.
"The government, NGOs and communities, all three are responsible for making a mess of the disaster situation," adds Vivekanandan. "The cash-rich NGOs went about duplicating livelihood and relief measures among people who had already got enough and more, as if there was a competition among the NGOs about who spends more."
Development experts and NGOs themselves are concerned about the situation. An ongoing study by the Rural Education Development Studies (REDS), Madurai, based on field surveys along the south Indian coast, shows a similar trend. "There has been a heavy flow of resources to different unprepared local structures including the church," says S Alexander, director, REDS, Madurai. "There have been opportunities for resources to NGOs from all sides. And the NGOs' credibility is questioned by the stakeholders." While NGOs compete for work, the response by government agencies has been inadequate.
Across south India, the number of boats distributed exceeds demand. At many places, boats lie idle. Although assessments of losses and beneficiaries are difficult, compensation was done without looking at who lost what and how many boats a coastal village can sustain on the basis of available fish stocks. A fallout of this oversupply has been a reduction in the prices of engines and boats, and many fishermen just sit idle. Labour for fishing activities has also dropped, leading to a vicious circle of too much too soon, with no one really knowing what to do about it.
"Too many boats and engines now have reduced the appreciation for boats and engines," says Vivekanandan. "The boats too are of inferior quality as they were built in a hurry, and abandoned boats are a common sight on the beaches now." Fishermen complain that too much water enters the boats and they cannot run on the high seas. The sudden increase in demand for boats has led to the mushrooming of inexperienced boat-builders, for whom the architecture of fast boats and the pressures of project deadlines have posed a challenge. The fibre composite used to make the boats is often not cured properly, causing bubbles to form and cracks to appear. The design is often not good enough to withstand the pressures of the rough seas and fast engines.
Many of the fishermen have no experience with high-powered boats. "Safety is a concern," says Soril Anbu Austin, a second-generation boat-builder in Kanyakumari. "A lot of people who had no experience with boating are now getting boats as part of the rehabilitation effort." There are reports of fishing accidents and injuries along the rocky coasts and rough seas that flank the southern cape of India.
Then too, a balanced approach towards fishing is needed to protect the available resources. Experts say there is an urgent need for fishing regulations in the country. "Total allowable catch and the licensing of boats have to be fixed for categories of fishermen, according to the instruments they use, as in the European countries, Japan and other developed countries." Lal Koiparabil, a fishermen's leader in Kochi, supports the call for regulations: "There is no proper regulation by the government. A comprehensive study has to be done on fish stocks." Otherwise, he warns, fishing in the long-term may not be viable for many people who depend on it.
Traditionally, local fishing communities have developed their own systems of management. There is something called a 'kadal kodathi', or a court of the sea, which deals with issues concerning livelihoods at sea. In some parts of Tamil Nadu, like Nagapattinam, a traditional multi-tier system is operational to manage fishing, and in Kozhikode, Kerala, local communities themselves enforce certain regulations.
Social workers say that in some cases the community itself was responsible for not taking advantage of relief and rehabilitation opportunities. "Instead, they got mired in greed, communal and cast biases and sheer apathy," says Vivekanandan. After the tsunami, people in the affected areas did not go fishing for more than six months, even when the season was favourable. "In this situation, if a fisherman who never had a boat or a house claims to have both, under the guise of being tsunami-affected, we cannot blame him," he says.
However, not everyone gave in to greed. There are many examples of communities coming together and pooling their resources to get a good relief package and, in turn, recourse to a better livelihood. Like Tharangampadi village in Nagapattinam, home to around 1,200 fishing families. Here the boats and engines were estimated at half the price. Those who could buy the boats and engines did so and the money was shared. Every member of the community got Rs 15,000 each, apart from the government and NGO aid. The village panchayat arbitrated for everyone at the time of relief and rehabilitation, and in issues of livelihood. In contrast, the people of Chinnangudi village were unable to come up with a suitable formula for their community. There was a lot of in-fighting about how to share the aid.
Ultimately it is the local community that has to cope with the effects of a calamity and the capacity created in its wake. There are instances where communities have mobilised, demanding more just and sustainable rehabilitation, as in Alappuzha and Nagapattinam. There are also many low-profile methods of dealing with the haphazard NGO action. "We noticed that fishermen sold excess craft or kept them for alternative uses," says Johonson Raj, director of the Kanyakumari Rehabilitation Resource Centre. Catamarans are kept for fishing near the coasts, and boats for braving the deep seas, depending on the catch of the season. The REDS study and government reports also indicate that people are borrowing and selling craft, sometime across villages and regions.
Johonson argues that there is no immediate fear of overfishing, at least in Kanyakumari. "Fishermen can achieve a balance on their own."
www.indiadisasters.org, December 2005
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What about the farmers who were affected? Once the farmers' problems were brought to the fore, the district authority gave landowners Rs 1,250 each for a hectare of land, the barest minimum for that much land. There was no proper support mechanism among the farming community, nor was any financial aid given to them. The NCRC and the Tamil Nadu Organic Farmers Movement are actively involved in desalination work in the area. The salt was leached, then the land deep-ploughed to improve its quality. Green manure seeds like daincha, which are salt-solvent, were cultivated. Likewise, two to five times the amount of organic manure per hectare of land was applied. The farmers have now begun cultivating their land once again. Almost 50% of the land has been reclaimed like this. The recent heavy rains, it is hoped, will completely wash off the remaining salt to allow the planting of fodder trees. Labourers working the land have always had a raw deal. Until the desalination of the land is complete, they have no alternative source of income unless they migrate to work on construction sites. Even there, most builders employ outside labour. |