Flood Of Philanthropy?

• 229 Lives lost
• 10 lakh People affected
• 229 Houses destroyed
• No. of houses to be built: 1,00,000
• No. of houses committed by donors: 69,500
• No. of villages to be relocated: 220

Some donors and the number of houses they’ve committed to build

• Builders Asso., Bangalore: 10,000
• Jindal Steels Ltd: 5,000
• Citizens Forum, Mysore: 5,000
• Infosys: 3,000
• Biocon & Bio Tech: 3,000
• Essar Group: 3,000
• GMR Group: 2,000
• Rajeev Chandrashekhar: 1,000
• Dalmia Cements: 1,000

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The response of the BJP government in Karnataka to the unprecedented floods across the northern districts of the state is without parallel. In an ambitious move, the government has decided to relocate 220 villages in low-lying areas to elevated terrain. Since relocation would mean rebuilding the villages, the government has initiated what it calls a “unique public-private partnership model”.

The plan is this: the government will transfer land and corporate partners in the project will build the new houses in a year. The houses are to come up on 30 x 50 feet plots with a minimum built-up area of 250 sq feet. They are to have rcc roofs and brick walls, and the donors are to spend not less than Rs 1 lakh on each house, for which a choice of design templates will be made available.

Already, there has been a serious political fallout. Riled by the appointment of Rajeev Chandrashekhar, a businessman and Rajya Sabha MP, as coordinator of the project (named ‘Aasare’), the powerful Reddy brothers, who are mining lords and also ministers in the B.S. Yediyurappa cabinet, want the government to stay clear of not only flood-hit Bellary but also Raichur, Gadag and Koppal—districts they see as their fiefdom. They see the drafting of an ‘outsider’ for relief work as Yediyurappa’s attempt to undermine them.

The flood-hit villagers are still in relief camps. Does the relocation plan really have their informed consent?

The Reddy brothers, Janardhana and Karunakara, are using the proposed relocation of villages and the tax levied on iron ore to fund ‘Aasare’ as a pretext to propel a rebellion in the state BJP and have sought a leadership change. They have even initiated a parallel housing project for 50,000 houses worth Rs 500 crore in Bellary and the northern districts. Alarmed, the BJP central leadership rushed senior leader Arun Jaitley to Bangalore to resolve the issue. Including the Independents backing it, the BJP has an effective strength of 121 in a house of 224. The Reddys have 18 legislators with them. But this could increase if they can convince speaker Jagadish Shettar to present himself as candidate for CM. Yediyurappa, on his part, has sought action against the Reddys and health minister B. Sreeramulu.

It’s against this backdrop that the state government now presses ahead with its intention to build 1,00,000 houses. It claims 29 donors are already committed to building 69,500 houses. Murmurs about “corporatisation” of relief are already doing the rounds. The more serious criticism, however, is about the government’s lack of sensitivity to the cultural and sociological implications of relocating villages. The immensity and complexity of the task seems to have escaped the government’s mind.

“One is not sure if the demand to move entire villages has come from the people or is being imposed on them,” says Chiranjivi Singh, former additional chief secretary and development commissioner. He sets another benchmark: “If the floods are a rare event, there’s no need to relocate.” For that, he says, the government must ascertain if these floods are a once-in-a-100-years phenomenon or an annual feature.

Most of the present villages fall short of that benchmark. The state government’s own memorandum to the Centre on the “heavy rainfall incidences” says: “Devarahipparagi, in Bijapur district,  received 143 mm in 24 hours on October 1, 2009, which was the highest rainfall in a day in the past hundred years. The previous highest rainfall recorded was 135.8 mm on January 17, 1915.”

Similar figures are available for many other flood-affected villages. This makes it clear it would be incorrect to call these villages and districts flood-prone and in need of urgent relocation. On the contrary, the northern districts in general, and the villages marked for shifting in particular, are actually prone to drought. The government admits to this too in its memorandum: “These districts are drought-prone with annual normal rainfall in the range of 580-885 mm. The region’s annual normal rainfall is about 731 mm.”

Thus, the government is not in a position to satisfactorily explain the relocation exercise. Dr H.V. Parshwanath, secretary for disaster management, says, “Fury of this magnitude has been witnessed for the first time. The biggest challenge is finding land. The first option is to use government land or buy land from private parties at three times the guidance value. If that isn’t possible, we’ll have to go for acquisition. As far as possible, we’ll try and relocate people close to their original habitation.”

Asked about the sociological implications of shifting the villages, he says, “The initial response of the people is good, but one isn’t sure if it will change. I’m sure there will be sentimental issues. There will also be ticklish issues about the spatial distribution of castes in a village, but we’ll handle it. Nobody would like to shift to empty sites, but since the government is planning to build houses, people would be willing to shift.”

Environmentalist Panduranga Hegde of the Chipko movement rebuts that argument. “It may be reasonable to relocate villages affected annually by flooding, but what’s the logic behind relocating villages for an event that occurs once in hundred years?” he asks. When the Supa dam was built across the Kali, the government had to relocate only 26 villages, with a population of 35,000, but this hasn’t been achieved even after 27 years. “How then,” he asks, “can one think of relocating 220 villages—that too in the Deccan plains, where the density of population is much higher? Are they trying to make relocation a profitable business? It’s time to put an end to this crazy idea.” Hegde also says bad dam management and water politics in the Krishna basin—involving Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh—could have led to the floods and implies the crisis could well have been “man-made”.

For reactions from the villagers, one has to wait until the idea of permanently losing their ancestral dwellings sink in. They are still in relief camps, grappling with the sudden twist of fate that left them homeless.