`Give permanent houses to the tsunami-hit quickly'

Nagapattinam: The Tsunami Fishermen Rehabilitation and Development Forum has urged the State Government to provide permanent houses quickly to all the tsunami-hit families in the district and provide all relief.R.M.P. Rajendiran Nattar, president of the forum and also the vice-president of Tamil Nadu Meenavar Peravai, told on Saturday that he had written to the Commissioner for Disaster Management in Chennai to take immediate steps to provide houses immediately to the tsunami affected people.

Mr. Rajendiran Nattar mentioned that the State Government had announced that it would provide permanent houses to the affected families within a year and pointed out that even after nearly two-and-a-half years of the tsunami, thousands of families were still loitering in temporary shelters.He said that some non-governmental organisations had built apartment-like houses and distributed to the tsunami victims in some areas. But the beneficiaries at many places did not occupy the houses due to various reasons, including lack of sanitary and drainage facilities.

He pointed out that the 450 houses that were built without toilets by South Indian Federation of Fisherman Societies (SIFFS) at Tarangampadi and handed over by K.P.P. Sami, Minister for Fisheries, last week to the beneficiaries irked the fishermen families who did not occupy the houses.He said that the Collector had been telling that more than 10,000 houses built by the NGOs had already been handed over to the tsunami-hit families in the district out of the 18,500 houses being built, but the ground reality was totally different as only 50 per cent of the houses were handed over and many of them were not occupied by the beneficiaries and they still reside in the same huts on the seashore.

Mr. Rajendiran Nattar also mentioned that several women, who had lost their husband in the tsunami, were yet to get the Government's relief assistance and many number of students in the tsunami-hit areas were yet to be provided fee relief. He appealed to the Chief Minister to take stock of the situation and provide all the relief assistance announced by him for the tsunami-hit people.