Government promises permanent shelter by Dec 2007 in Andaman

Port Blair, Dec 25 (UNI) The centre has promised that almost all 46,000 people who had lost their houses in 2004, in far flung Andaman and Nicobar Islands, will get their own permanent shelters by December 31, 2007.

About 3,500 people out of the 370,000 residents of the remote archipelago were killed or went missing when the December 2004 Asian tsunami slammed into scores of islands.

Two years on, more than 9,700 families are without permanent shelter and live in temporary homes of corrugated iron, which often become unbearable in the summer heat.

''We are sure that the work for construction of permanent shelters would be over by the end of 2007 and almost all the tsunami hit homeless people would get their shelters by then,'' Dharam Pal, the islands' relief commissioner, said in a press conference at Port Blair yesterday evening.

The relief commissioner added that Great Nicobar, the southernmost island of Indian Territory would be an exceptional case, where construction work would take a little longer time, due to inaccessibility.

But NGOs say that this is practically not possible looking at the pace of work at present.

''The way the work is progressing I feel its impossible to complete the construction work for permanent shelters within time,'' Samir Acharya, Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology (SANE), an NGO in Andamans told UNI today.

Acharya said tsunami-hit people specially tribals are utterly unhappy with the models and in places like Central Nicobar the work is too slow.

''I fear tribals won't allow the government to carry on with the construction work as they are annoyed with the model,'' he added.

The relief Commissioner said that the planning for permanent shelters took one one-and-half year as the Administration was busy in consulting with the grassroot leaders and tribal captains about the model of permanent shelters.

''Tribal people had suggested us many changes in our models and we have accepted most of them and in every islands permanent shelters would constructed as suggested by the local islanders,'' he said.

Administration claimed that together with local approval the design was finalised by various nationalised organisations like Central Public Works Department (CPWD), Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO), National Building Construction Corporation and IIT Chennai.

The giant waves that inundated the island chain, 1,200 km off the Indian mainland, after the December 26 tsunami killed about 500 islanders and made another 46,000 large numbers homeless.

On Thursday, the government approved 12.2 billion rupees for reconstruction of houses and other 'community facilities' for the tsunami survivors.

UNI SKR BA AB RS1135