INDIA: Reclaiming Land Remains A Major Issue for Tsunami Victims

   By Fairus M Nur Ibrahim

CHENNAI, India (Asia 
Media Forum) - December  26, 2004 was just another day for Poungulai a mother of four who had stepped out of her house to fetch fresh drinking water for the family. 

   Then something unusual happened, a young man was screaming at the top of his voice but she could not understand what he was saying.

   She heard the words "water, water and water" before everything went blank. Poungulai had been hit by something that came with a huge wave from behind.

   When she regained consciousness two hours later, she had lost everything she could call her own her family-husband and three children--and their home located about 15 metres inland from the sea.
 
   Only eight-year-old Virmala and Poungulai were outside the family home on the fateful day after Chirstmas last year when the giant waves had struck India's south-eastern coastline.

   Virmala had left home early to attend a school competition at Nagappttinam five kilometers away and Poungulai was out to fetch drinking water.

   Kichankuppam, a village of 5,600, in Tamil Nadu district was among those hardest hit by the tsunami. According to Gabriel Shanti, a human rights worker of Coastal Action Network (CAN), Nagapattinam, the storm killed about 556 people in the village.

   Puongulali now lives with her daughter in a 3 X 3 meter refugee shelter about 200 metres away from the spot where her house used to be locagted. A corner of the hut has pictures of her husband Veeramani and three sons Vijay (13), Vinoth (6) and Punithavaty (4).

   The family is still mourning, indicated by the incense burning near the pictures of the dead and the offerings they have placed on a small alter in front of the photographs.

   It has been a year since the giant waves swept struck India's south-eastern coastb but for Puongulali, every day has been like the one when she regained consciousness and found her world torn apart.

   She has been unable to start afresh or build a new home.

   "I am afraid of going back to the place where we had a house, I'm afraid of living on the coast," she said.

   Her old home remains partly buried in the sand, and some of the adjoining land was washed away by the waves. A new plot could be the start of a new life for her but she does not have the means for building a house.

   The issue of reclaiming lost land remains a problem for many families that were displaced by the tsunami in South and East Asia. In the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) province of Indonesia the storm swept away land belonging to about 1,000 people.

   Reclamation of land is more complex in Aceh not only because the giant waves altered the existing borders but also because many of the tsunami victims lost their titles to property-the only proof of ownership-in the storm.
 
   The tsunami damage was colossal. The storm left some 240,000 dead and damaged about 499, 240 homes causing over 480,000 people to seek shelter in the refugee camps.

   The waves also washed away about 1,600 km of the coastal area, which now remain submerged. In other places the physical boundaries that separated plots were washed away.

   "Our village remains only in name, most of it has become a part of the sea now," said Teungku Maksum, an official of the Gampong Baro village, Mesjid Raya subdistrict, Aceh Besar state, Indonesia.

   Gampong Baro is among the settlements that the storm almost washed out of the world map. Its 235 residents, including Maksum, are now living at a foot of a hill about 10 kms from their village hoping to return to their land some day.

   These villagers not only lost their land to the sea but like many others in Aceh, they also don't have the papers to prove thieir ownership.

   Many whose property was recognizable have already reclaimed their property. Others-like Kajhu and Peukan Bada (Aceh Besar) or like in Meuraxa and Kuta Alam (Banda Aceh)-have posted signs to mark spots (now under water) that once used to be their fields and homes.

   There are also some signs warning others to stay away from certain areas saying the rightful owners or their heirs are still alive.

   "I do it intentionally because I worry that other people could claim and take away my land without any compensation," said Hasan Basri.

   The problem of reclaiming land at Nagapattinam and other tsunami hit villages of Tamil Nadu, India is not different than that in Aceh. Generally, the people have moved into areas that once belonged to them and have begun rebuilding.

   "So far, there have been no major conflicts mainly because people have been able to identify their property," says S. Gomathi, an activist at the Social Need Education and Human Awareness (Sneha), an organization that assists the rehabilitation of tsunami victims.

   Another factor unique to India helped to ease the process of reclaiming property damaged by the storm.

   "The panchayats assisted to prevent possible land-related problems," says Srinivasan, a human worker from Salt Foundation.

   The panchayats are local elected bodies and its members are respected by the largely homogenous communities along the coast line.

   One reason for the general acceptce is that the panchayat representatives are locals and are aware of the boundaries of property and also personally knew the villagers before the storm washed away the markers.

   "The panchayats have also taken over property in cases where the original inhabitants were killed in the storm for returning it to the nearest of kin," says Gomathi. "The people's trust in the panchayat has made this possible."

   Most of the people living in the costal areas do not have proper land deeds, and especially those living within 200 meters from the seafront, which is another reason why reclaiming property was largely uncontested.

   "The families lived there for generations even though they did not own the land and did not have proper registration papers," says Gabriel Shanthi of Sneha. "But because the land is not registered they cannot contest the allocations."

   According to Sukumar Muralidharan a researcher at the Jamia Millya Islamia, New Delhi, India, re-settling the displaced was not very complicated because the people stood to lose more in the event they contested the allocations.

   Such a situation could have even caused the people to lose their land without any compensation because much of the costal area has been set aside by the government for research since 1967.

   Most of the people living near the sea come form fishing families and cannot afford land elsewhere or rely entirely on the sea to make a living which is why they are reluctant to relocate.

   "At Srinivasapuram people sleep on the sand outside while their small huts are used only for cooking and shelter," says Srinivasan.

   Most of the seafront huts are tiny single-room structures with coconut leaves for roofing.

   After the tsunami of 2004, India issued a new rule requiring people to build houses at least 500 meters away from the sea (previously it was 200 meters).

   It also announced a compensation of 457 square metres of land further inland for households willing to move away from their seafront property.

   "People living within 500 metres will not be given food, water and other rehabilitation support," says Gabriel Shanthi, a project officer at Sneha. All households receive the same parcel size irrespective of the plots they owned on the seafront.

   Many fishing families, however, have refused to take the government offer because their livelihood depends on the sea. They have continued to live along the coast despite warnings by the state's chief minister J. Jayalalithaa saying that such families would not receive rehabilitation assistance.

   However, it is a different story in Aceh, where most of the victims did have landownership papers-even though their land was washed away or remains submerged after the tsunami.

   The issue there is not only about reallocation but about re-mapping the old borders and renewing the ownership certificates.

   The National Land Agency (BPN), the government agency that oversees land management, is putting together an electronic database with the support of the World Bank to assist the reclaimation.

   The plan is to issue electronic ownership certificates to land owners which would be secure during floods and other natural calamities. The documents can be accessed electronically and prints can be obtained as needed.

   "The printouts must be attested by the local chief of BPN for them to be legal," says Razali Yahya, head of the BPN in the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province.

   The project which is now in the preparatory phase would have to restore and conserve about 600,000 ownership certificates. And this is not an easy task because documents belonging to almost 80 percent of the residents were lost in the storm.

(ENDS/TSUNAMI/FMNI/BB)