Building Fresh Dreams From The Debris
Not so long ago, Maharashtra's Latur and Osmanabad districts were just another relatively insignificant statistic on the physiographical map of the country. The September 1993 earthquake in these districts alerted the country to their existence and gave the statistically minded more numbers to crunch.
The extent of the devastation roused many moneyed organisations and even more unmoneyed individuals to participate in the immediate relief work. But in the three and a half years since the quake, only a few remain in the area who continue to do battle with the statistics as translated into human life, and death.
The quake, which measured 6.4 on the Richter scale, killed many (official figure: 9,484), injured more (official figure: 14,845), and caused damage worth lakhs of rupees. Two lakh structures in over 2,500 villages were damaged. The overall affected area was approximately 52,000 sq km, with the core impact of the disaster felt in a square area of around 500 km.
There are two broad categories of non-locals active in the area the various agencies involved in construction and the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), appointed as Community Participation Consultants.
The January 1994 World Bank Report on the Marathwada Earthquake identified 49 villages comprising about 23,000 houses that required complete resettlement, and in situ reconstruction of about 29,600 houses in the remaining affected villages. Six months later, the state government distributed the task among a number of organisations. For most, the job is now drawing to a close and they are preparing themselves for the inevitable inspection.
Most don't pass muster even at a cursory inspection. A ride through the main tarred artery of the quake-devastated Marathwada heartland produces visions of row after row of matchbox houses that would look horrific even in the most concrete of urban jungles. Built to provide immediate relief, none seemed to contain a thought for the long-term housing needs of this very rural, cash-crop growing region.
One agency the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) can afford to actually hold up a magnifying mirror to itself. Most visitors to the site are struck by HUDCO's earthquake-resistant low-cost housing.
HUDCO was set up in 1970 as a 100 per cent Government of India enterprise, to ameliorate the housing conditions of all groups, and with a thrust to address the needs of the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Low Income Group (LIG). In keeping with those objectives, they `adopted' four of the affected villages in the area Chincholi-Tapse, Utaka, Tungi Badruk and Tembhe, all in the Latur district. The government of the Federal Republic of Germany, along with the German Bank for Reconstruction, came forward with a Rs 20 crore outright grant to finance HUDCO's building activities.
HUDCO has since spent Rs 18 crore in the complete rehabilitation of three of the four villages, andin situ reconstruction of the Tembhe site. Construction activity in all four villages is virtually over, and the houses now only wait for the allocation of occupants.
HUDCO officials take pains to explain the difference between their housing project and that of other organisations. Ours is a comprehensive approach, which relies on people's participation. Our planning and construction has been done completely in keeping with the rural way of life, with particular reference to the families living in this area, says V Suresh, chairman and managing director, HUDCO.
The organisation roped in Rajasthan's Avas Vikas Sansthan (AVS) to actually implement the construction. HUDCO has a long association with AVS, especially in the development of their `Building Centres. This concept facilitates the transfer of low-cost technology to the people by directly involving them in construction work, thereby also generating employment. The AVS-HUDCO combine has set up Building Centres in each of their rehabilitation sites, in addition to one at Belkund.
Executive director for design and development, M N Joglekar, elaborates: Before the earthquake hit the area, Marathwada was never considered a potentially seismic zone. And as with most rural areas, the villagers used the locally available material here, mainly heavy blocks of stone, packed with heavy mud to build walls and roofs. This was the single biggest reason for the heavy damage. In an ironic reiteration of nature's great levelling powers, the biggest structures because they housed the richest suffered the worst damage.
The HUDCO-AVS strategy was to use precisely those locally available materials, but modify them so as to be as near earthquake-resistant as possible. So, instead of using solid stone, they developed a technique of filling hollowed-out blocks of stone, so as to make them both sturdy and light-weight.
Similarly, while designing the houses, HUDCO adopted the `cluster' plan of housing in which, unlike urban patterns of individualistic housing, houses are built around a central community point, typically, the village well or the village tree. Adds Joglekar, We were careful to provide extra space around the houses for either future expansion or for the villagers to use for purposes such as cowsheds, storage areas, etc.
But even as HUDCO tomtoms its commitment to participatory planning, the affected people have their own stories to tell. HUDCO's idealised planning and the villagers' lived experience are at times disjunctive. For one, the residents of the recently-completed Chincholi-Tapse say that they still sleep in the open, terrified of reliving the trauma of having their roofs cave in on them. Equally at odds with the careful planning is the sight of kitchen space being used as grain storage area and toilets being used as kitchens.
This is just the expression of a fear psychosis, rationalises Joglekar. Physical rehabilitation is a comparatively faster and easier process than the physiological. It will take a few more years for the villagers to really come to terms with their losses and their changed lives.
This section of the rehabilitation work has been entrusted to NGOs. Two are most active in the earthquake districts the Tata Institute for the Social Science (TISS) and the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC). Both were appointed by the Maharashtra government in response to a World Bank recommendation, chiefly to implement information dissemination and strengthen community involvement.
Meanwhile, AVS' manager in charge of the Latur project, Alok Goyal, and his team of 50 prepare to shut shop, pack their bags and head home. HUDCO will officially down its Latur shutters in a few months. But the petrified villagers will still have to learn how to sleep easy at night.