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Accent on creating jobs for rural people in Cuddalore

An ambitious scheme aimed at generating employment opportunities in the rural landscape will be launched in the backward coastal district shortly, according to official sources.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme will also be introduced in Villupuram, Nagapattinam, Tiruvannamalai, Sivaganga and Dindigul.

The government will allot over Rs 60 crore a year for the project. As per the scheme, the elected panchayat president and the local body will act as a nodal agency for implementing the scheme.

The local body will provide employment to members of a family, which requires a job, for 100 days a year.

The family members will have to enroll their names with the local body. Works such as desilting of lakes, irrigation channels, and strengthening of river bunds, canals and lakes will be undertaken as part of the project.

Work relating to tree plantation will also be taken up under the scheme. The government has banned the use of giant machines in the work.

The families, which have enrolled their names, but not received the employment in a year, are entitled to receive unemployment allowance.

The scheme had been introduced in Rajasthan and Maharashtra recently. The project would go a long way in eradicating poverty in the rural terrain, the sources said.

Tsunami fundraisers’ medical centre joy
By Aaron Bateman

PEOPLE living in Indian villages practically washed away by last year’s devastating tsunami will soon be receiving treatment at a medical centre named after St Albans.

Building work is poised to start on the project which is the brainchild of a group of St Albans residents who raised almost £30,000 at a charity ball in March.

Paul and Nadine Gibbon of Battlefield Road, together with fellow organisers Jez and Kerry Day and Bob and Inez Rosen, have spent the intervening period narrowing down a series of charitable projects before deciding on the St Albans Medical Centre in the Cuddalore district of south-east India.

Paul said: “One of the people we met was a lady called Lorraine Page who was a Macmillan nurse on secondment in Cuddalore when the tsunami hit.

“She became so involved with the community and the relief effort there and her work took on a new direction.

“When she gave us her presentation about what’s needed in the area we knew it was the right project for us becaue she was so down to earth and passionate.

“We had several really slick presentations from larger organisations but they already have some major backing.

“We were just really taken with Lorraine’s grassroots’ approach.”

The money raised from the ball will cover the building costs and pay for a team of health workers and a doctor for at least three years.

Nadine explained that once the initial money runs out further events will be planned to ensure that the centre is a permanent one.

She added: “This is just phase one and we will do what it takes to keep the centre up and running.

“The ball may well become a bi-annual event so we can keep the fund topped up.

“We don’t intend this to be a one-off and we’re not going to just walk away after three years.”

About 250 people were killed in Cuddalore while thousands more were injured or made homeless by the Boxing Day tsunami and relief efforts are still being hampered by ongoing flooding in the district.

Dozens of families in the area are still living in temporary accommodation.

The medical centre is expected to serve 28 villages when it opens.

5,000 saplings planted along Cuddalore coast

In an effort to raise green belt along the coast and protect the people residing in the region, Isha Foundation has planted 5,000 saplings in six coastal hamlets in the district.

The programme was inaugurated by District Collector Gagandeep Singh Bedi at Periyakuppam.

The fishing community people, including children, school students and women, participated in the programme and planted saplings along the 6-km long coastline. Volunteers of Isha Yoga Centre, Coimbatore, also took part in the event.

As many as 60 varieties of saplings were planted at Periyakuppam, Pettodai, Ayyampettai and Nanjalingampettai.

The programme was organised by Project Green Hands of Isha Foundation.

Mangroves protect villages in India’s Pichavaram area

It was mangroves that saved thousands of lives in five hamlets of Pichavaram area in South India’s Cuddalore district on Dec. 26 last year.

While the waters headed straight for a kill, the mangroves stood guard, and took the impact of the killer waves, shielding the villages from them. And today, with little fish at sea, fishermen are fishing in the same mangrove areas and making their livelihood.

According to Cuddalore District Collector Bedi, five of the 17 villages were saved by the mangroves.

These villages have a total of 1,228 families. When waves struck, the mangroves cut down the volume and speed of water, saving thousands of lives and property.

Liyakash Ali Khan, a village administrative officer in Pichavaram area, said that the damage could have been severe had mangroves not covered the villages. “The remaining 11 which had no mangroves suffered severe damages to life and property,” he says.

In fact, the mangrove trees themselves did not suffer serious damage either. Only a few trees got uprooted, securing the inner areas. Also, many fishermen at sea rushed and took shelter in the mangroves.

what bliss have the mangroves been? Well, compare the five villages to the remaining unprotected Pichavaram villages and you can see the difference.

Hundreds of lives have been lost in the area. One of the villages, Pillumedu, alone lost 30 children and 13 adults, another neighboring village lost about 150 people. Other villages also lost dozens of lives. Their shelters were washed away and they lost their homes, livestock and livelihood.

Groundnut fields also suffered some damage in unprotected areas. Now, the Cuddalore administration and non-governmental organizations are busy reconstructing lives of affected Pichavaram areas while people from the protected ones look on and thank the mangroves for saving their lives.

Pichavaram, India’s mangroves area, has 16 varieties of angiosperms and attracts tourists from all over the country.

Tsunami-hit villagers await Vivek Oberoi’s return

Actor Vivek Oberoi is a real life hero for Devanampattinam, a fishing village in Tamil Nadu where he helped villagers find the rhythm of life after last year’s disastrous tsunami.

Squatting on the cemented floor of his hut built by Vivek soon after the Dec 26, 2004, disaster, Velumurgan, 16, told IANS: “The actor helped us stand up when we were down. He promised to help us start walking again.”

The teenager quickly added: “But Vivek never came back again.”

Following the devastation in the village, 10 km away from Cuddalore town, Vivek built 100 huts at a location nearly two kilometres away from the coast under his project called “Hope”.

The administration has also built 200 huts at the same location.

A total of some 2,500 people live in these huts, most of which have palm leaves for roofs. The others have cemented sheets as roofing and steel sheets as walls.

Muthuraman, the district coordinator for the NGO Mata Amritanandamayi Math, which has been associated with the rehabilitation work, said: “Vivek completed the first two stages of rehabilitation work quickly. First relief and rescue and, second, providing temporary shelter.

“He also wanted to be involved in the third stage - to provide livelihood support and permanent shelter.

“But he left his work half done because of his clash with the state government and interference of others engaged in rehabilitation work. Seeing him attracting attention, they wanted him away from the place as soon as possible.”

The government had accused Vivek of drawing “maximum publicity” for doing “nothing tangible”.

Following that, the Bollywood star moved his housing project to neighbouring Pondicherry, where he recently completed reconstruction of nearly 100 dwellings.

In Cuddalore district, where around 500 people perished in the tsunami waves, the administration has still not been able to complete the 642 brick-and-mortar houses it undertook for construction.

These are expected to be ready by the middle of January - in time for the Pongal festival.

Admitting that rains had seriously hampered the construction of permanent shelters, Cuddalore district collector Gagandeep Singh Bedi said: “We are racing against time to complete the houses.”

Many villagers, while being grateful to Vivek, are not happy with the palm leaf roofs.

“This is not sufficient to prevent rain water from seeping into our huts. When it rains, we go to a nearby temple,” said 45-year-old Umaya, who sent her daughter Bhubaneswari, 22, to stay with her brother in Chennai because of the difficult living conditions in the village.

Though the government-built huts seem better, the low ground level makes them unsuitable during monsoon.

Anpalagan, 70, said: “These huts look solid comparatively. But when it rains, water enters because of their low ground level. It creates water-logging because of the way they have been made.”

Tsunami anniversary: United, Cuddalore stands

Silent processions, tree planting, inauguration of memorials and inter-faith prayers will mark the first anniversary of the December 26 Black Sunday when the tsunami took more than 640 human lives and destroyed the livelihood of thousands in Cuddalore.

The district administration has made arrangements to set up six stalls on Silver Beach here to market products made by tsunami-affected women through self-help groups from December 23 to 26.

On December 26, saplings will be planted at MGR Thittu, Parangipettai and C Pudupettai in memory of the dead. Memorial pillars and gardens will be opened in Ayyampettai, MGR Thittu, C Pudukuppam, C Pudupettai, Kumarapettai, Samiarpettai and Devanampattinam. A silent procession will be taken out by villagers from affected hamlets. Authorities will hand over 20 FRP boats to 100 beneficiaries.

An inter-faith prayer meeting, photo exhibition, relay torch march from Pondicherry, yoga and karate demonstrations will also be held.

An enterprising man has decided to swim from Pondicherry to Cuddalore with his hands tied to express solidarity. A candle lighting ceremony will be held at Devanampattinam in the evening.

Good Samaritans: Tsunami bridges caste divide

MGR Thittu was a beautiful little island on the Bay of Bengal till it was devastated by the tsunami.

Sixty-four people were killed and the island was reduced to rubble.

In the caste ridden district of Tamil Nadu where there are deep divides and recurring tension between communities, it was the poor dalit farmers in the neighbouring village who came to the rescue of the more prosperous fishing community.

They provided them with food, shelter and clothing and helped them begin a new life in temporary government shelters.

Time to reciprocate

The recent floods in Cuddalore provided tsunami survivors an opportunity to reciprocate.

When the villagers who helped them during the tsunami were marooned in the floodwaters, the fishing community swung into action.

They rescued over a thousand villagers with the help of boats and provided them with all the essential supplies till the waters receded.

“Even though people look at the caste first, they forgot all the differences and saved us and looked after us in a humane way,” said a tsunami survivor.

Joy of giving

The district administration will soon convert this island in ruins into a tsunami museum and these remains will certainly tell a new story of the new bridges of friendship.

The tsunami rendered thousands of people homeless. While many of their basic requirements have not been met even after one year, it has had a different impact on the people who lived in picture perfect post card setting.

They have become more generous and have discovered the joy of giving, even while they themselves are at the receiving end.

Second blow for India’s tsunami victims: heavy monsoon rains

Rows of new shining fiber boats sit on the beach. The hapless fishermen look agonizingly at the rough sea. Less than a year after the devastating tsunami, the worst monsoon rains and floods in 100 years have hit southern Tamil Nadu state, slowing recovery efforts and stamping on morale. “It’s nature’s second blow to us,” says Natrajan, a fisherman in Cuddalore district, who uses only one name.

The heavy downpours began in October, ending five years of drought in Tamil Nadu, but the water seems to be chasing millions of people along the coastline, compounding their misery when they’re already struggling to overcome the trauma of the Dec. 26 tsunami. The tsunami killed some 648 people in Cuddalore. The official death toll across India was 10,749. Another 5,640 people, mostly in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, are listed as missing, presumed dead.

The tsunami also sucked away the fishermen’s boats and nets and destroyed their homes, leaving thousands with nowhere to live and no means of working. After sitting idle for four months, the Cuddalore fishermen received 1,500 new reinforced plastic and wooden boats from aid agencies. At first, their catches were good, even beyond the pre-tsunami yield, says Gagandeep Singh Bedi, the top district official. But for the past two and a half months, the catch has been extremely small because heavy rain and storms have kept the fishermen on land.

The fishermen are hoping that the January-March season, which often brings prawns, squid and expensive varieties of fish, will mean good profits from exports to Europe. For now, though, they’re just waiting out the rain. The latest monsoon deluges have killed 430 people and left a half million homeless in Tamil Nadu alone. The wet season, which began in October, typically runs until the first week of January.

Twenty-two of the state’s 30 districts have been hit by monsoon floods, including Cuddalore and Nagapattinam, the districts also worst-hit by the tsunami. Cuddalore has received 13.45 centimeters (5.30 inches) of rain since October, more than double the annual average, according to the Madras Meteorological Department.

The rains have also slowed efforts to move tsunami survivors into permanent housing, meaning that thousands of people are forced to continue living in water-logged temporary shelters with dirt floors and walls made of corrugated cardboard.

State authorities had planned to hand over 1,200 newly built homes to tsunami survivors in Cuddalore district to mark a year since the disaster next Monday, but the rains have delayed that plan by at least five weeks, Bedi said, reports the AP.

Arko Datta who won the World Press Photo Award 2004 for his photograph taken in Cuddalore during tsunami had won the award once earlier in 2002 for his photographs covering Gujarath riots.Here is the pic which got him the award earlier.

Tsunami changes tribals’ life for better