Sandeep Virmani, executive secretary of Sahjeevan -- a non-governmental environmental organisation -- has been working in Kutch for the last 12 years. He is also a leader of Abhiyaan, an umbrella organisation of 29 voluntary agencies engaged in relief work after the earthquake of January 26, 2001. One year after the devastating calamity struck Gujarat, he assesses the rehabilitation work done by the government and NGOs over the past year:

AFTER the earthquake, we were worried about the huge aid that was expected. Kutch is an arid area on the border and, because of these two factors, has been a very pampered district. Every five years there are two or three droughts, so in the drought year the government declares relief programmes.

Therefore, a lot of unaccounted money, unplanned budgets and irregular schemes come into the district. Every village that is declared 'drought affected' gets up to Rs 30 lakh every year in this manner, and a lot of this money goes into unplanned areas. It is perceived that the money is being used for labour work and the funds are never evaluated.

Originally, the objective was to use such a budget for water-harvesting schemes, which could make villages drought-proof in the long run. But this never happened, because expenditure during the drought years was never evaluated. The government never prepared a drought management plan from which one could identify or quantify the work.

This resulted in a situation wherein people realised that it was better to have a drought than to have regular monsoons. Such thinking is dangerous, because if people start looking forward to a drought, they will not put in enough effort into animal husbandry and agriculture.

Thanks to this mindset, people for the most part don't start tilling their lands till it actually rains, because they know that in the event of insufficient rain and a spoilt crop, the government will step in with financial aid. This sort of situation is tailormade for the middlemen and, thanks to their presence and activities, a community that used to be tight-knight begins to break up. This happens because the man who can get the most amount of government money for the village becomes the most important person.

Earlier, the village leadership had thought about long-term sustenance of the villages, but in recent years the middlemen have started to dictate. The villages are peopled by touts who bribe government officials to get "drought relief work" sanctioned for their areas.

The practice has been for the women of the village to go to the drought relief site and register for work. Corruption begins here -- a family with three members will register one or more non-existent members, with the extra remuneration being split between the family and the government official.

This practice has made everyone happy -- except the NGOs, who have been attempting to ensure that the people are productive and serious needs are met with the money provided by the government.

In the last 14 years, the area has witnessed nine droughts. A total of Rs 6.14 billion have been spent in the district of Kutch on relief work -- and there is absolutely nothing to show for it.

NGOs have systematically resisted such practices and insisted that Kutchis should not be taught to, or permitted to, live on the dole. Even after the earthquake, in the very first week itself, we had argued against giving free homes to the people. In the days immediately following the quake, the locals had said that if they were given loans, they would build their own homes. And finally, the 'free home scheme' happened.

Initially, people started building their own temporary homes -- but once the government announced that temporary homes would be provided, the people stopped working. They thought that if they built their own homes, they would not get the government's largesse.

The emotional energy that was released after the earthquake was powerful enough to create a new Kutch. What was needed was to channel that energy, to use it to bring much needed development to the region.

But that is not what happened. I remember the bargaining that ensued. Villagers would ask us, 'What have you brought for us, show us.' And once my 'presentation' was over, the next guy in queue who wanted to 'help' the village would be called to display his offer.

We tried to counter this by pointing out to them that the money came from real people. Like, an old lady in Scotland had sent money because her parents too had died in an earthquake. From Andhra's coastal area, poor people had collected two rupees each and sent it to us. We used to tell them these stories so that they would learn to respect the money, not bargain for it.

Once we got this message across, we spoke to the people about rebuilding their village. We started orienting people, volunteers, government and national and international funding agencies on this issue. We did not want to provide temporary shelters. We wanted people to participate. The Abhiyaan group gave materials worth Rs 7.5 crore. People added their own labour and material. The final programme worked out to Rs 21 crore!

The needs of 100,000 Kutchis were serviced in this manner. But there were also other NGOs, who came in and built everything for the villagers. In Latur, for instance, there were two zones. One was the relocated zone, built entirely by contractors, where nothing was owner-driven. The rest was a larger area that was totally owner-driven, where repairing and retrofitting work was carried out by the villagers themselves, and new homes were built, in around 90 villages. This work happened at a faster pace than the other, and brought more satisfaction to the villagers.

Overall, I was reasonably happy till two months ago. By and large, a good policy was in place, corruption was not widespread. But over the last two months, we have been witnessing widespread corruption, which has affected rehabilitation work.

In some cases the initial survey had not been done properly, and now it is being patched up through corrupt practices. The survey of the damages is a very important part of disaster management. The entire policy of rehabilitation is based on this survey. It's not an easy job, and it needs to be done thoroughly. But there was pressure on the government to come out with quick policy decisions.

As a result, the government hired 400 engineers without giving them any guidance or directions. There was nobody to talk to them, they were young boys, most came from outside. Since they were not being monitored, they succumbed to corruption.

By and large, the government understands what NGOs want, but it has failed to provide leadership. It keeps changing officials, as a result of which the rehabilitation work is affected.

In the cities, the government hired a planning agency, which, it was thought, would do all the necessary planning. But there was a complete lack of communication. Here are 1.5 lakh people who want to discuss and decide how to build their own home, how to rebuild their city. But today, they have no one to talk to, no one to discuss this with.

As told to Sheela Bhatt in Bhuj

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