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Thousands of tsunami victims on India's remote Andaman and Nicobar archipelago are still living in temporary shelters almost three years after the devastating December 2004 tsunami washed away their homes.
A plan to build nearly 10,000 permanent houses has crawled behind several deadlines with work even at a showpiece project near the capital of the islands progressing lazily, making victims despondent in their filthy tin shacks that bake in the tropical sun.
They are the forgotten victims of one of the worst disasters mankind has known, due to what aid groups say is the combined onslaught of bureaucratic ineptitude, avarice, natural hurdles and the physical and psychological distance from the mainland.
"Housing remains a burning issue for victims and progress remains very slow," said Anupama Muhuri of voluntary group ActionAid.
"In fact, on some far-flung islands, they are still searching for sites to build permanent shelters.
"Where they have identified sites or construction has started, they have not consulted the victims, taken their livelihoods into account or promoted joint ownership by couples," she said.
The Indian Ocean tsunami hit the remote Andaman and Nicobar archipelago badly, killing more than 3500 people and displacing nearly 40,000 when it slammed into the scenic isles which are about 1200km east of the Indian mainland.
Authorities built temporary shelters for victims made of corrugated metal sheets, and initially promised to move them into new, permanent homes in early 2007.
Last December, on the eve of the second anniversary of the disaster, officials said all the 40,000 homeless would get permanent houses by the end of this year.
But no one trusts schedules any more with the first houses in Bambooflat, a small island about a 30-minute ferry ride from Port Blair, the capital, still not ready three months after a May 31 deadline.
"Nobody is raising a voice because they fear that if they protest too much they may not even get what they might one day," Muhuri said.
A sleepy, federally administered province where authorities battle long distances, poor infrastructure and heavy rains even at the best of times, the archipelago is one of India's more underdeveloped territories.
New Delhi runs the islands like a tight ship, restricting access to foreigners, partly to protect some of the most isolated tribal people known to still survive in the world and partly due to security paranoia in a strategically important region.
The lack of a local legislature means the hold of the bureaucracy is complete and this has spilled over into tsunami rehabilitation as well, Samir Acharya of the Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology said.
Even though several voluntary groups were willing to build houses for victims, authorities mandated that they use government designs and source construction material from a few designated businesses."But as the ministries started dictating designs, they gradually started pulling out," said ActionAid's Muhuri.
Andaman officials say the islands face unique challenges and cannot be compared to the mainland. "We can only work for four or five months in a year as it rains for the rest of the time. All the stores have to be brought from the mainland which pushes up costs and time," said Bhopinder Singh, the islands' chief administrator.
-Reuters
