For a year now, Shambu Thapliyal wakes up almost every night screaming. A torrential storm stirs high up in the Himalayas. In no time, ice-cold water barrels down the mountain side in a sea of mud and rocks, washing away roads, bridges and picturesque villages. Amid floating debris and corpses, Thapliyal’s house bobs in the water like a paper boat.
After the disaster, the government announced an immediate compensation of Rs. 2 lakh to every affected family. It also promised to pay Rs. 3,000 a month for a period of two years towards payment of rent for each of 3,320 families which had lost their houses.
It then announced a further compensation of Rs. 5 lakh to each of those families to build a new home with the rider that they must be able to prove they own land.
Most victims say government disbursement of the rent amount has been at best erratic. And the condition attached to the compensation for building houses means that hundreds of people who lost their lands to the floods don’t qualify.
Also, land sharks seeking to exploit the situation have driven real estate prices up.
“Property owners are asking 8-10 times more money than the actual price since there is a dearth of land,” says Raju Barthwal, a real estate dealer.
The main thrust of the state govt’s restoration efforts was on roads as is seen in these photographs. Around 400 roads and 21 bridges were washed away in the torrential rains last year. (Mukesh Semwal/People’s committee for uttarakhand disaster rehabilitation)
The government denies any bungling on its part. “There are formalities which the beneficiaries have to fulfil,” says Raghav Langhar, district magistrate of Rudraprayag, trying to explain the reasons for the delay in disbursement of compensation.
In Chamoli, one of the five worst affected districts, dozens of people continue to live in makeshift camps in absence of any financial help from the government.
With tourism badly hit, the disaster broke the backbone of the state economy. From a peak of 14-15 million tourists visiting the Char Dham pilgrim circuit in the last few years, tourist inflow has trickled to just 70,000 this year.
For the people of Uttarakhand, the fallout is crushing. Santosh Tiwari, 23, saw his tourist lodge at Kedarnath washed away in front of his eyes. He hasn’t recovered since.
Work on rebuilding and repairing damaged houses has been slow. The promised monthly rent to each of the 3,320 affected families has been erratic. (Mukesh Semwal/People’s committee for uttarakhand disaster rehabilitation)
“We now make do with whatever produce we get from a small farm we have,” he says.
As business and jobs dried up, thousands of people have left for the cities, traveling as far as Delhi and Mumbai to find work. Says Thapliyal, whose elder son now works in a private company in Delhi: “We survive on whatever money my son sends. Without that I don’t know how we would survive here.”
The government is banking on grants and loans to get the state back on track, spending most of the money on rebuilding infrastructure. The scale of the disaster is clear from the fact that some 4,200 villages were affected and nearly 9,000-km of roads destroyed.
Flood survivors say building roads and bridges was fine but the government needs to look at creating employment opportunities for them.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/northindiarainfury2013/after-the-himalayan-tsunami-it-s-a-long-road-to-recovery-for-uttarakhand/article1-1229873.aspx