The New Nation - Internet Edition

THE picture which is emerging about the relief and rehabilitation efforts in the cyclone-affected areas, is one of some degree of indiscipline although in some cases the operations are going well. There is a great need for the entire exercise to run very efficiently indeed, to help overcome the very extensive damages suffered by the people in nearly one-third of the country in varying degrees. The complaints which have become louder from the very distressed people are that some of them are getting oversupplied with relief whereas others are getting nearly bypassed by the same. Lack of coordination between government relief distributors and the NGOs, private persons and organisations, is leading to relief sometimes of the same sort reaching the same recipients repeatedly while others very much in need and located at a distance are finding no relief.

The air-dropping of emergency foods and other supplies or tossing them on affected people, have also meant scramble for them. Fisticuffs were reported between the ones who could grab such dropped items and others wanting to lay their hands on the same. The scuffles caused serious injuries in some cases. Thus, this type of unsystematic dispensation of relief goods must give way immediately to better planned efforts. The same should aim to disburse relief materials in proportion to need to all the affected ones. Ideally, everybody in the affected zones should be covered successfully. It is very necessary to have accurate data by now about the people who were hit by the cyclone and the types of their needs. A list of them should be drawn up and a card should be issued against each of them or against the head of a family. The card holders should be asked to report on a regular basis to the local disbursement place and they can be supplied on a weekly or fortnightly basis going by the cards.

The greatest benefit of it will be every deserving person getting supplies regularly. The grievances now noted in relief distribution will come to an end. The other major aim should be achieving coordination in distribution of relief materials from different sources. It should be tried to give the relief in a coordinated way from the same place. The private groups can be asked to liaison with the government for the purpose. All or nearly all of the cyclone afflicted are in need of ready food, clean water, match boxes, fuel and shelter. In the next phase, they should be disbursed cash money for house building, for buying fishing nets, agricultural inputs and other implements for resuming their normal economic activities. Special agricultural loans will have to be considered for them. The new loans should be free from interest and terms and conditions for their repayment must be made as flexible as possible.