Red tape, poor distribution hit relief operation

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At the sprawling Lalan College complex in Bhuj on Sunday, a group of policemen tore off a few boxes of blankets, thoughtfully marked, ‘‘A gift from the people of Tunisia.’’ They pulled out some blankets, gave some to two persons and kept a few aside for themselves.

A few metres away, three policemen at the behest of a sub inspector, were loading blankets and foodgrain from Tunisia, food packets from Norway and Kinley mineral water boxes into an autorickshaw. When asked where the stuff was going, one of the cops said: ‘‘Mamlatdar-saheb has asked for it.’’ Asked if it would go to the Mamlatdar’s residence, he said, ‘‘No, no, this is being taken to the police station for the staff.’’

As some jawans of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) objected to this, the PSI got wild and asked, ‘‘Who are you to object? And which State you are from ?’’ When a CISF man said his State did not matter, the cops brushed them aside: ‘‘Complain to anyone you wish to. It is the Gujarat police.’’ So they went away. A CISF jawan said, ‘‘This cop has been taking away material from here for the last four days.’’

A little further away, another cop, along with a civilian, was opening boxes of food packets from Norway. Standing on a heap of wheat from Tunisia, he said, ‘‘We are not taking them, we just wanted to see how it tastes. Why don’t you also try?’’ A couple of feet away, there were boxes of sugar cubes thrown open.

Hundreds of tonnes of relief supplies are waiting for distribution at the Lalan College complex and even at the Bhuj airport. The packets may be safe at the airport, but not outside.

Lalit Mansingh, Chief Coordinator, Earthquake Relief, admits that tents, blankets and foodstuff are lying at the Bhuj airport and other places waiting to be lifted. ‘‘We are setting up community tents and have slowed down on giving individual tents as well as blankets. Some 1 lakh tents and many more blankets are coming. We will start distribution once we have stocked them up, but everyone will have shelter within the next two to three days,’’ he says.

Mansingh said, ‘‘We have told the foreign countries not to send foodstuff for we don’t need it and then it is also perishable’’. He said a new system was being worked out to distribute the food items through the fair price shops.

Till then, everything will wait to be picked up. According to Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Chaman Lal Gupta, ‘‘So far, 81 aircraft have arrived from different countries with relief supplies, including 3,428 packets of blankets, each comprising around 30; 2,500 tents and 73 tonnes of food-packets containing bread, biscuits and fruits.’’

At the Sardar Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, it is the red tape that has tied the helping hands. ‘‘Just yesterday, a blanket was found missing from a consignment. While we decided to overlook it and signed it in, 20 minutes after it was unloaded, we were asked to re-load it as those in charge of loading in onto the truck refused to accept it. This led to a lot of delay in dispatching it,’’ said an official at the godown.

A number of tents, blankets and drilling machines have been lying at the godown though they reached here more than a day ago. ‘‘There are generator sets which could be very useful in the affected areas, but they have simply been kept here. The cutters too could be useful, but it has been a number of days since they have been here,’’ said a Government official.

A Japanese delegation which landed with relief material worth over Rs 2 crore has similar woes to narrate. ‘‘We realised after landing here that the Government had mentioned consignee as the Gujarat Government and we needed to get the name changed. But the officials here took two full days to explain it to us and sort out the matter,’’ claimed a member of the delegation Prof Harishankara Sharma.‘‘The material is off-loaded from the aircraft onto the trucks, this is then offloaded at the godown only to be loaded again based on instructions. We wonder why decisions can’t be taken effectively and speedily, especially if it concerns things like tents and blankets,’’ said a representative of an NGO.