Mr. Lepcha begins his final instalment with the information that “few developments” have taken place in Chungthang in the past few months since the release of his report, adding however that a lot more needs to be done.
The construction of the SDM complex has been sanctioned and work commenced, while a new police station – a prefabricated structure – is being readied [“shapeless and without any aesthetic or traditional appeal”, he adds] even as the damaged food godown has not even been demolished yet, making its new construction a very distant reality.
The grand announcements of the UD&HD towards safe and aesthetic development and planning are unlikely to deliver since most of the new constructions have started and the site/ soil testing by Mines & Gelogy Department never having taken place. Similarly, repairs too have been undertaken without this essential data.
The telecommunication network has improved with AIRTEL providing reliable service, Mr. Lepcha informs, adding that the piggery farm along with the hospital remain in their desolate condition since funds initially marked for them have been since diverted to other projects.
The construction of the Chungthang monastery has begun while the gymnasium hall which is meant for the sporting events is now the food & feed godown, the roll of trucks moving to and from it disturbing the patients and perhaps wreaking further damage on the weakened structures.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the district, the Ringhem Gumpa committee has withheld further work after completion of first phase of construction, Mr. Lepcha updates.
There is no love lost between Mr. Lepcha, with his ACT affiliation, and hydel project developers and he complains of a false picture conveyed to the people with regard to the helicopter services plied in North Sikkim in relief and rescue operation works by Abir Infrastructure, a sister concern of Teesta Urja, the Stage III hydel project developer. Information sourced by Mr. Lepcha through RTI reveals that Abir Infra was paid Rs 3.09 crore by the State Government towards payment for the use of its helicopter.
Mr. Lepcha reiterates that reconstruction and rebuilding efforts suffered because the government did not prepare a proper ‘Priority List’ for utilisation of calamity fund. In this regard, he points out for the construction of the State Secretariat was recorded as Top Priority in all submissions followed by the REDRH “which”, Mr Lepcha states, “is continuation of Populist CMRH scheme in a new name”, while essential services like water supply, food, communication, health rank fourth in the priority list and Power comes last.
Out of the Rs. 1,000 crore Prime Minister’s special packages, Rs 193 crores was earmarked for the secretariat, out of which Rs. 15 crore has already been paid to the construction company (with Rs 9 crore being the consultancy fees for making the DPR), 100 Crores has been slated for payment for this project in this financial term, Mr. Lepcha shares. Reconstruction of 7,972 rural houses will receive Rs. 389 crore, repair of buildings and roads Rs. 216 crore, retrofitting of govt building Rs. 196 crores; “which meant that the most essential amenities came much lower in the list with very little fund due to which we are still suffering even after a year and half,” he points out.
Restoration of Power lines in North Sikkim “was hampered not only by natural calamity but the lack of intent from the Govt. in spite of best efforts of the officials on the field”, he adds, highlighting further that tourism remains similarly overlooked with the tourist waiting shed at Bim Kyong in Lachung still in the same condition as it was on 19 September 2011.
Similar disorientation in priority, Mr. Lepcha adds, has also befallen JICA funds for the Forest Department, all Rs. 17 crore of which, he contends have been expended on repair and renovation of the office and department quarters, with nothing done to take up schemes that could help stabilise landslide prone areas or restore earthquake ravaged zones.
Ditto for Public Health Engineering works no attention being paid to the fact that the water supply line from Pegong to Chungthang was already damaged due to uncontrolled blasting by GREF and usage of large machines in the road widening process. “The earthquake was more of a compounding factor only, whereas the damages were done and not much was done about it earlier on,” he states.
Mr. Lepcha also mentions the State Govt order directing all interested donors to contribute to the CM’s relief fund and that no cash donations be given to victims directly. This, he believes, was a big blow to the victims as a large number of people and organizations wanted to provide relief directly and this notification stopped them from helping people in the hour of need. “If left optional, much more support would have been provided. The govt should have monitored but not posed obstruction,” he believes.
He has held up the presence of Panchayats as via media for distribution of relief as a “hindrance”, arguing that since panchayats are party-based, “one upmanship and favouritism was evident in selecting the beneficiaries”.
“Everything was controlled by them which to a large extent became a hindrance in smooth relief operation. The civil society and independent govt employees were disconnected from effective decision making process due to which free and fair management was not possible. Most of the contract and supply works were captured by them or their close people, moreover since all the earthquake related works were taken up departmentally there was no information to the public and no free and fair tender,” he states, making a rather serious observation.
He argues further that lack of adequate training of officers despite a department for Disaster Management also affected the quality of relief works. “Over confidence” and “indifference” of the administration left it in complete disarray when the earthquake struck, he adds, pointing out that disinterest in preparedness led to a situation where decision-making suffered and was delayed in the absence of clear chains of command.
Mr. Lepcha admits that just as the administration was caught unprepared, so too was the society at large which sorely missed the structural solidity of established civil society organisations to deal with the calamity.
On the reconstruction specifics, Mr. Lepcha returns with elaborate details over the manner which the secretariat construction has been managed to favour the company which eventually bagged the prestigious project even though it has defaulted on some much smaller projects awarded to it in Sikkim.
He then takes up the Reconstruction of Earthquake Damaged Rural Houses (REDRH) scheme of the RM&DD for which Rs 389 crores has been earmarked. He recognises that while this is a very good scheme for the homeless and those whose houses were totally damaged by the earthquake, “it is seen more of an effort to continue the earlier populist scheme of Chief Ministers’ Rural housing Mission (CMRHM) than to provide relief to the people in distress”.
Mr. Lepcha’s complaint with this project is that it is uniform for all in its requirement for new constructions and does not provide for quick repairs of existing houses and also because the waiting period is rather long for beneficiaries. He also believes that the allotted fund is at least 30% lesser than actual cost of construction, which needlessly burdens beneficiaries.
This scheme, he adds, also overlooks the desperation of the middleclass families who suffered as anyone else, but find funds which could have helped them with repairs for their houses, blocked in projects [like REDRH and CMRHM] which they cannot partake. He adds that beneficiaries for these schemes have not been fairly selected.
Mr. Lepcha is convinced that at the end, the cement and steel manufacturing companies and their agents will make huge profits. Claiming that more than 23 lakh bags of cement and some 35lakh kgs of steel will be consumed in Sikkim for the two schemes, Mr. Lepcha speculates, “It also makes us believe that this could be also a reason for the scheme as all the method of procurement and other modalities are already there due to the CMRHM. The bulk of the money will go into purchase of material which is coming to approx Rs 188 crores after deducting the other half for payment to the beneficiaries.”
He also pulls up the Social Justice, Empowerment and Welfare Department for its failure to help in the rebuilding process. The Department should have functioned as the nodal agency to understand and deliver welfare measures, he shares, pointing out that it apparently never occurred to the Department that there were women and children who were faced with the worst possible calamity in the lives, the shock and trauma of having lost loved ones and also having lost hard earned properties. ‘Under such situation it is only natural that the Department provides a truly healing hand but as found from the RTI nothing of sort ever occurred to their mind leave aside doing anything in this line,” he informs.
The post earthquake days, he insists were a casualty of management with neither proper impact assessments undertaken, nor specific management plans worked out. And still no lessons have been learnt because even as reconstruction has begun, it is not informed by the available expert advise of Mines & Geology Department, which, at least in the wake of the earthquake, should have emerged as the Nodal Agency for rebuilding works. Even the UD&HD ‘master-plan’ for Chungthang, prepared a year after the earthquake, will be almost useless since a lot of legal and implementing issues are yet to be resolved, he adds.
Expert recommendations, the few which have been clearly made, remain ignored, Mr. Lepcha adds, adding that not a single Department “has bothered” to recognize, with award or felicitations, the role of different organisations or individuals in the earthquake relief and recovery efforts.
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