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Houses remain a dream for many
cyclone survivors in Orissa

Houses remain a dream for many survivors of the cyclone that devastated Orissa's coastal districts three years ago, consuming thousands of people, their villages and huts.

The husband of 45-year-old Dola Pradhan was killed in Kujanga village, part of Erasama block in Jagatsinghpur district. She now leads a painful life in a makeshift hut and has to look after three sons and two daughters.

"I went from pillar to post seeking a shelter, but to no avail," Pradhan told rediff.com. "I was denied a house under the Indira Awas Yojana, sponsored by the Centre, because my name did not figure in the list of those below the poverty line," she said.

Saraswati Mandal, 30, has two children who work as labourers at Kaurnta village. "My husband died in the cyclone and after that all responsibility came upon me. Prior to the cyclone our makeshift house was on an encroached land, which belonged to the government. Now we do not have any house except this one, which we have built over the past three years," she said pointing to a hut made of straw and plastic.

There are more than a thousand such people living in makeshift houses, Damayanti, an activist of Action Aid, a non-governmental organisation, said.

The government and voluntary organisations provided thousands of houses to those affected by the cyclone, she said, adding many did not get one because they were not in the list of those below poverty line.

But these people lost everything and have little for their survival, she said.

Erasama block was the worse hit by the cyclone on October 29, 1999. More than seven thousand people and 50,000 cattle were killed. Thousands of hectares of paddy crops were destroyed.

"We have received complaints, but we are not at fault," district Collector Krushna Chandra Mohapatra told rediff.com. "We were supposed to provide houses under the Indira Awas Yojna to people who were below poverty line. We provided houses on the basis of the BPL list prepared in 1997. Besides, we have taken into consideration the list of 1992," he said

"According to the rules we are providing Rs 22,000 to the beneficiary for the construction of house. After the super-cyclone we were granted funds to construct 48,126 houses in the affected areas. Later we were given another 56,802 houses after a flood ravaged the villages in our district in 2000," he said.

Recently, the administration launched a survey to enlist all other people living below the poverty line, he added.

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