24 full moons, still a dark night in tsunami hit islands

Port Blair, Dec 24 (UNI) Even though 24 full moons have come and gone, darkness still prevails for nearly 46,000 tsunami hit people in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, who are bound to live in congested intermediate shelters in poor conditions.

''Its nearly two years and still the government is unable to construct permanent shelters for us. How long do the Centre want us to live inside those cages, they call intermediate shelters,'' M Singh, a irate villager of Chouldari in South Andaman, questioned.

Mr Singh is among few other courageous villagers in South Andaman, who decided to come out of his Intermediate shelter and reconstruct his own house, which was damaged in December 26, 2004 earthquake and tsunami.

''I feel its better to work in my field and earn bread instead of sitting idle in those horrible shelters and beg for food from officials,'' he added.

According to government figures, a total 9797 permanent shelters were to be built by the Centre in the remote tsunami ravaged islands but islanders are unhappy as even after two years the government was unable to provide them a permanent shelter.

''We have a target to complete construction of the permanent shelters by the end of 2007 and I am sure it will be done,'' Dharam Pal, the Relief Commissioner of Andaman and Nicobar Islands told UNI in Port Blair. But islanders, mostly tribals were unhappy because of the delay and models of the permanent shelters.

''We are not happy with the pre-fabricated models of government.

We will rather prefer models made up of woods and bamboo,'' said Martin Luther a member of Tribal Council of Car Nicobar.

A mass agitation held in Hut Bay Island recently by tsunami-hit people had resulted in Lathi-charge in which dozens of tsunami-affected people were injured.

''Administration was building homes for us like government colonies, in clusters. We are farmers and not used to these kind of house,'' said Paritosh Halder, a grass-root leader of Hut Bay Islands.

Tsunami-hit people of South Andaman village have been demanding for construction of permanent shelters near their respective agricultural land but government said this was not possible due to logistic problem.

''It is not possible to build more than 9000 houses in different locations. There are logistical constrains and in that case the cost would go very high for the huge task,'' District Commissioner of South Andaman K S Singh clarified.

Andaman administration said permanent houses were being built in clusters so that new clusters of houses could be provided with medical centres and water supply with other facilities like Aganwadi, and shops.

Various NGOs working in these remote islands are also unhappy with the government planning.

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