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Journalism of Courage
A week after it formally set up office in the premises of the National Institute of Disaster Management, the Home Ministry cell established to oversee ‘‘housing, infrastructure development and reconstruction’’ in the tsunami-hit Andaman and Nicobar Islands despatched a team of officials and technical experts to Port Blair.
The recce team will be followed by Home Secretary Dhirender Singh, who begins a visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Sunday.
Over the past weekend, specialists from institutions like the Structural Engineering Research Centre, Chennai, and the IITs in Chennai and Roorkee met in the Capital to ‘‘evaluate design structures that could withstand disasters…and finetune them to architectural norms’’.
As a ministry official explained, ‘‘We see this as an opportunity for improvement in infrastructure in the region. A tsunami of this nature will always do some damage. But that doesn’t mean we don’t attempt qualitative improvements.’’
The ‘‘big challenge’’, the ministry says, will be in the tribal-inhabited Nicobar Islands. ‘‘We have to use modern technology keeping in mind the traditional living conditions of the people,’’ said one expert.
For instance, in Nicobar many of the aboriginal people build their houses on stilts. ‘‘They live on the first floor,’’ said one official, ‘‘and use the ground floor, as it were, as a workplace. Pigs, coconut and copra are central to their economy…The floors have separate planks, to let in breeze. Our designs have to incorporate such factors.’’
The stilts are usually built of coconut shafts, vulnerable to ‘‘water and white ants and needing to be changed every three or four years’’. The Home Ministry cell is looking at rebuilding houses using reinforced concrete cement (RCC) stilts. ‘‘RCC has a life of 25-30 years,’’ says a cell functionary, ‘‘it is also strong. After the tsunami, we found that RCC pillars of water tanks had survived.’’
Another critical focus will be inter-island transport: ‘‘We are working on the option of airstrips or helipads on as many islands as possible. This is now a necessity.’’
Not disturbing the ecosphere is another imperative. ‘‘In normal times on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, you are not allowed to cut forest trees for wood or take sand from the beaches,’’ pointed out a territory official, ‘‘but due to the tsunami emergency, the Supreme Court has relaxed the measure for a six-month period.’’
Nobody is talking budgets yet. ‘‘It’s too early,’’ smiles the man at the Home Ministry, ‘‘any figures will be speculative.’’ Preliminary estimates from the islands say it will take Rs 150 crore to repair electricity facilities and another Rs 300 crore to bring the jetties and wharfs back to pre-December 26 conditions.
‘‘Even those sums are only if we want to take things to where they were,’’ signs off the official, ‘‘for improvement and upgradation, the outlay could be much more.’’
