The devastating earthquake in Maharashtra, late last year, which has left almost 10,000 people dead and almost 1.5 lakh homeless in and around 62 villages of Latur and Osmanabad districts has inflicted severe miseries on the unsuspecting people. The heavy loss of life and property has shattered many families. The task of providing relief and rehabilitation, on such a scale, demands diverse skills and multiple resources. It is really heartening that a broad-based partnership between people from all walks of life, the international community, and the government has emerged in meeting this challenge.

The Ahmedabad Study Action Group (ASAG), a non-profit NGO run by a multi-disciplinary team of professionals has been involved in disaster relief housing for over 20 years. Their effort has resulted in rehabilitation of about 30 villages – over 3000 houses – ravaged by floods in the river Narmada and also a township with 2250 houses in Ahmedabad, following heavy floods in the river Sabarmati, in the mid 70’s. though all of these required relocation on a new site, they were mostly successful in terms of client acceptance, cost efficiency and people’s participation. Our last experience, however, meant to resettle a village called Dhanora of about 160 families, affected by expansion of an IPCL plant near Baroda to a site just three kms from the original village, has been a total failure. New houses built with attendant services and community facilities, at a cost of Rs. 50 lakh, are lying vacant for over seven years.

It is this mixture of good and unsuccessful experiences in disaster rehabilitation that prompts us to make the following broad observations. They are also based on information and feedback gained by some of our colleagues who visited the disaster village recently.

q	A majority of the buildings that have collapsed due to earthquake were built by the villagers themselves. They were user controlled structures in the sense that they were not built by contractors, real estate developers or public housing agencies; were not designed by architects or engineers; and not supervised by qualified supervisors. Though the structures have collapsed, the skills to build and get houses built are still intact.
q	The collapse of the structures is not a sufficient reason to suspect – and thereby reject – this ability of common people and local craftsmen; especially when they themselves, under the shock of tragedy and disaster, have started doubting their own traditional skills, wisdom and appropriateness of the structures they had built. The buildings have collapsed because they were not built to withstand the forces that the earthquake generated. As experts say the region was seismologically inactive for centuries. Even scientifically evolved building codes had certified the region to be a safe zone. Therefore, it is useful to remember – and more useful to let the local people know – that the buildings have collapsed not because they did not know how to build them but because the earth changed its behaviour. If Bombay were to experience similar shocks even professionally designed structures may not be able to withstand then. Now, however, people could build earthquake resistance houses with a little guidance from those who know
q	The same logic applies to building materials. Some of the engineers and structural engineers, including Padmashri Laurie Baker, who visited the ravaged villages are of the view that the damage is not so much due to use of local materials (stone, in particular) but because of construction methods and techniques; not the material itself, but the method of its use. This is necessary to verify and understand because summary rejection of a local material, which is plentiful and easily accessible to people, both in form of rubble of the collapsed structures and from normal commercial supply sources, not only has cost implications (which might be absorbed through external interventions in this extra ordinary emergency) but also in emergence of a culture of rejection and a psyche of alienation that may cost the local people – especially the disadvantaged groups and over 1,00,000 skilled craftsman in building trade – dearly in the long run. If people are asked or encouraged to discard locally available and relatively inexpensive building material like stone, which they have used in construction for centuries, it would prove to be a major handicap; a permanent disability. It may take away people’s freedom to build. The point is also that it is possible to evolve safe building designs, capable of withstanding future earthquake shocks, without summarily throwing out the local materials and techniques.
q	The trouble with most disaster rehabilitation efforts is that relief and rehabilitation get confused and intermixed. Relief is temporary, immediate and oriented primarily to giving and dispensing. It is, by definition, short-term. Rehabilitation, on the other hand, by its very nature, is a long term thing as it involves creating new, hopefully better and longer lasting housing than the one it is meant to replace. The difficulty, however, is that a culture of “emergency” gets loaded on the decision making and therefore both the “process” and the product suffer. It is not without reason that end-product of many disaster housing rehabilitation efforts are disastrous themselves. The underlying problem is the “emergency culture”, “hasty decisions”, and total “negation of processes”. The real tragedy is that the suffering community’s temporary disablement and handicap get enlarged and projected as some sort of extended, permanent disability which also leads to denial of their legitimate role, involvement and participation in the rehabilitation and reconstruction processes.
q	The experience of years tells us that there is no such thing as immediate, instant rehabilitation. Rehabilitation always takes time irrespective of what one says or does because it involves long term asset creation, relatively heavy investment, and new organisational infrastructure where little existed before, bringing together a number of unrelated actors and agencies to perform, and often inventing new solutions. Can all this be done overnight? And if one tries to do that, what will one end up creating? It will neither create good assets, nor get the maximum out of investment, nor solve problems

Both planning and building need time. And that must be given.

It is useful to remember, that a number of new villages and thousands of new houses that you intend building immediately, hastily and in the shortest span of time, took decades, if not centuries, to come up. However efficient you are or whatever the nature of your technology, you cannot capsule time in that manner. The idea here is not to say that one should allow years and decades to rebuild the houses and villages. What is suggested, however, is that they cannot be produced over-night. Both planning and building need time. And that must be given.

If you try building new settlements overnight, you will not have time for any of the legitimate processes. In fact, the “emergency” will provide the rationale and jurisdiction to scuttle, skip, bypass and even reject those processes. This is especially true for the villages to be relocated on new sites. As experience shows, finding 30-40 new village sites, which are topographically proper, acceptable to residents, involve minimum socio-economic dislocation, are far away from drinking water easily accessible and economic in terms of creation of services and social infrastructure; is not easy. That is one thing that the Sardar Sarovar Project has taught us. These sites cannot be found overnight. And if they are found and accepted – even with the contrived consent of the end users under pressure of “emergency” – they might be either disfunctional or unacceptable or non-viable or expensive in the long run. A number of evaluation studies of the earlier homestead plot distribution scheme for the rural poor (under the Minimum Needs Programme) and the more recent Indira Awas Yojana have identified numerous deserted and unoccupied newly built settlements.

For the relocation of villages, site planning is equally important. How will the difference in size of land plots and houses in an old village be accommodated in the new one? Will all be given equal size plots and equal size plots and equal size houses? How is the caste factor, which reflected so heavily in the neighbourhood pattern if the existing villages, to be handled? Will all castes be lumped together? Will lots be drawn for allotment of plots and houses? Will Harijan and caste-Hindus share common walls, and courtyards? Will Hindu and Muslim live side-by-side? Can the 40 second long earthquake eliminated age old prejudices, customs, traditions and preferences and neutralize long standing hostilities? Will people agree to these things? Will you impose such sensitive decisions on people? The point is that if you ignore to answer these questions in planning new settlements, they will end up having social problems and new tensions. And if everything is to be done instantly and overnight, where is the time for consulting people, finding answers to some of the above questions and feeding them in the design and planning process?

The quality – in design, construction, workmanship,
materials and details – will be the first casuality

The quality – in design, construction, workmanship, materials and details – will be the first casualty. No one ever thinks of giving the disaster victims reasonable quality houses in any case. And the emergency syndrome justifies poor quality. The results are everywhere to see. Aren’t some of the houses built under rehabilitation schemes, and even normal time Indira Awas Yojana houses, and insult to people?

The same thing may happen to planning and laying of infrastructure services, construction of community buildings and other facilities.

If new houses and settlements are going to cost Rs. 300 to 500 crore, a good question to ask is: is it possible to invest purposefully such a large sum of money in a short period of a few months? Can it deliver good results?

All this is not an argument to cause or justify delay. It is an argument against irrational and impractical haste. By efficiency you could compress, to an extent, the time schedule. You could possibly compress process somewhat too. But you cannot eliminate them altogether. If you do so, the results will be questionable.

The real question then is: is there time for the processes? Aren’t people out in the open? Aren’t they shelterless? So long as the affected people are kept in the culture of helplessness, made to feel incapacitated and encouraged to be dependent, they would remain so. If we really observe affected people’s behaviour, it would be found that once the shock of death and destruction has blunted a bit, they waste little time in trying to put pieces together again. That is the human law.

It is this positive aspect of disaster victims’ behaviour pattern that most rehabilitation planners tend to neglect, even negate. Given an option (environmental, mainly) encouragement, support and strength, most disaster victims will put together a make-shift shelter for themselves; or in extreme cases, with an outsiders’ marginal help in labour and material. That neither takes much time nor money. In most situations, especially in the rural, self-help practices and mutual help networks get activated, almost spontaneously, in a disaster situation. Shouldn’t this phenomena be explored to buy the minimum time required for the processes listed earlier?

Whether the disaster victims will agree to wait or not, for a “reasonable” period, not endlessly, will depend largely on how meaningfully they get involved in planning their future habitat and livelihood; how they are shown long term benefits of proper planning; and how they are helped to adjust and pull on in the interim period. It will also depend on whether the benefactors, in form of the government, anxious to restore normalcy, and the voluntary agencies eager to undo the harm, all well-intentioned and in good faith, are able to resist the temptation to do everything yesterday and desist form building a culture of over-dependence. Most importantly, it will depend on the level of help, kind of arrangements and amount of investments that get made for the transitional, interim phase.

Though many people may not agree with my assertion, this is mainly a matter of attitude: of disaster victims, on the one hand, and of those engaged in helping them, on the other. A relatively friendly climate (waiting will be impossible in Europe or similarly harsh climate regions), social relations and accommodating nature are also conducive to puling on a little longer in a make-shift, even uncomfortable, living environment.

Besides buying time for designing, planning and consultation, it is of crucial importance to think through various aspects of organisations arrangements for planning and executing works. This is where things go wrong, objectives get diluted, distortions set in, processes get circumvented, and the outcome suffers. There are many ways of doing things. However, the better way will be to give a shape to the unstructured partnership that has spontaneously evolved between the government, non-governmental agencies, professionals and disaster victims. All are needed in this task: The government with its resources – money, land and, wherever necessary, its organisational machinery. NGOs (defined in a broader sense to include voluntary agencies, business and industry and other motivated to contribute and help) with their motivation, ability to reach people, educate and organise them to become active partners, evolve alternatives and to act as watch-dogs against possible deviations and leakages. And the disaster victims themselves to articulate their needs, contribute their skills and labour and motivated enough to convert this disruption into an opportunity; this liability into an asset.

The government’s role in this operation should be primarily one of ‘facilitator’, not ‘doer’. It should create conditions for other partners to play their roles effectively and expeditiously. Both the organisational structure and operational arrangements should reflect the philosophy and culture of “facilitation” and “enablement”. Decentralisation should be the key theme of the operation and the partners mentioned above should be as assigned roles commensurate with their principal strengths.

If the organisational design changes, the nature of the task will also change. Looking at the task in a centralised way, with the government as a builder, the target will look staggering: 30000 houses! The material and manpower need, time-required, everything will look immense. But if the responsibility for raising the structure is left with the concerned family, the target will become one house for one family. It may sound simplistic. But that is what it really is. The question is one of attitude. And also of conceiving an appropriate organisational design.

It must be mentioned, at least in passing, that rehabilitation is to be seen not in separate compartments but as part of an overall ‘development’ package. Integration, coordination, convergence are all aspects of it. The earthquake has necessitated a massive investment in the area. The kind of investment figure that is floating around is not something that becomes normally available for such villages. But that investment has to be made. How to take it far for the disaster victims and how to optimise benefits for the area is the real challenge. Rehabilitation, as we know, is static, status-quoist. ‘Development’ is dynamic. And that must be the goal.

Yet another aspect which need mentioning relates to dealing with what has survived. Considering that the earthquake could reappear again, almost any day, how to strengthen the structures which are standing is also to be examined. A small investment now could save a massive one later. However, if it does not get integrated in the current programme of relief and rehabilitation, it may never happen until it is too late. Identifying structural solutions, and making institutional arrangement for financial assistance for the purpose, may help moving in the right, ‘non-burdening’ direction.

Resources, skills, experiences and understanding of what to do and what not to do exist. Much will depend on what to do and what not to do exist. Much will depend on what attitude the government takes and how imaginative and creative it remains in facing this challenge.

EARTHQUAKE RECONSTRUCTION IN MARATHWADA – BEGINNINGS OF A NOVEL EXPERIMENT

On 30^th September 1993 a powerful earthquake shook the otherwise seismically inactive area of Marathwada. 3638 people were killed and 9954 houses completely destroyed according to government records. Another 4000 houses were seriously damaged. The loss of property estimated to be worth over Rupees 2500 crores.

Government relief effort was very prompt. The Indian Army and other rescue teams swung into action. A temporary shelter provision programme began within seven days of the disaster. Medical aid, sanitation, clean drinking water, care for children and widows, care for animals, and all other immediate necessities to bring life back to a high degree of safety and security were provided simultaneously, with commendable support from NGOs.

The authorities are now in the process of providing long term relief to the disaster stricken population. Building new houses is one of the major tasks ahead of them. For this purpose alternative sites have been demarcated outside the destroyed villages. Apart from building individual houses, the government plants to provide infrastructural facilities like schools, hospitals, Panchayat Bhawans, banks, post-offices, roads, drainage facilities, power and water etc. in all of the new village sites.

Non-Governmental Organizations, trusts and private sector companies offered to undertake the task of reconstruction. Some have already commenced work. Necessary funds have been pledged by development agencies, corporations, newspapers and other groups. The Government machinery also plants to rebuild villages. Its efforts have been held up because funds have not reached the implementing agencies.

The Government asked Maharashtra Housing and Development Authority (MHADA), the state Public Works Departmetn (PWD), and the Town Planning Departments of Latur and Osmanabad to prepare individual village layouts, house plans and technical details which incorporate earth quake resistant measures. They have also prepared broad estimates for the work to be undertaken by all the agencies involved in reconstruction.

Development Alternatives (DA) and Laurie Baker pointed out, in the meetings of the Advisory Committee set up by the Government of India, the short-sightedness of this form of centralised planning. The village layouts prepared by the town planning department are based on city-like grid plans. These are diametrically opposite to the kind of cluster layouts that suit village lifestyles. They do not take individual site conditions into account. Like-wise the house plans prepared by MHADA were typically urban, to the dissatisfaction of the people who understood the implication of such houses.

The conventional designs and technology choices proposed by MHADA came under criticism from the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) and the Building Materials & Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) as well. The MHADA designs proposed conventional fired brick and RCC construction, which is not appropriate for the area. The high requirement of sand in conventional techniques has already created social divisions in the area which has very little sand of moderate quality. The government is now conducting auctions for control over river sand and giving the rights to outside contractors. The designs do not utilise the rubble available in plenty near the reconstruction sites, and used bricks instead, when bricks available in the area are costly and of extremely poor quality.

More significantly, the centralised planning approach did not take into account the aspirations of people. DA supported a village-based cluster design approach by NGOs involving peoples participation in the planning process and documented its acceptability amongst residents of one village.

The Government has now decided to allow alternative village layouts and house plans to come up in the area. DA is involved in the preparation of one such model for village Malkondji in Latur district, which is going to be implemented by the Evangelical Fellowship of India – Commission on Relief (EFICOR) with DA’s technical support. Laurie Baker is similarly involved in the planning of village Banegaon with the Malayala Manorama group doing the construction.

A team of professionals from DA visited the affected villages and discussed possible layouts, house designs and technology with the people. At the time of writing they were glued to their drawing boards making plans. These will now be put before the people to make required alterations. Hope the best comes out!!!

Back to Contents

An excerpt from the letter written to Shri Sharad Pawar, Chief Minister, Maharashtra

EARTHQUAKE RECONSTRUCTION IN MARATHWADA – BEGINNINGS OF A NOVEL EXPERIMENT