Gujarat's forgotten villagers

Sinogra village residents have received no money

		By BBC News Online's Sanjoy Majumder in Bhuj.

A year after an earthquake destroyed much of India's Gujarat state, many of the victims say they have been betrayed by their own government.

"I was asked to pay 2,000 rupees to get my compensation from the government," said Hirabai from Mendela village, her voice shaking in anger. "I paid the money in August, but I am still living in a tent with my three children."

The well-off and the higher-caste communities have taken most of the compensation

Kuldip Sagar, Action Aid

Devenbhai, who belongs to the lower-caste Hindu Kohli community, and 30 of his fellow villagers lost their houses in the earthquake as well. A government survey was carried out but nothing followed.

"The local official told all of us to pay 5,000 rupees to get our compensation," he said.

Stories like this greeted the BBC team in many places across the devastated Kachch region of India's Gujarat state.

While we saw impressive progress in much of the countryside, stories of corruption, apathy and total neglect were also very much in evidence.

Kuldip Sagar of Action Aid says the system set up to reconstruct the state allows malpractice to take place quite easily.

"The government has failed to create any transparency. The villagers are at the mercy of local officials who do not always carry out the orders they are given."

Villagers have been fighting for compensation

The problem is that the victims only receive money to rebuild their homes after an official survey determines the extent of the damage to their houses and the compensation they can qualify for.

Even aid agencies and non-governmental organisations helping to rebuild the villages are dependent on government data.

"We can only build houses for people who have been cleared [for a new home] by the government," said Satish Sinha of Care International.

Others agreed that working with the government was hard.

"Corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency exists," said V Arockiam of another relief organisation, Caritas.

"But we have chosen to work with the system in order to get work done. There are good people in government too - we have to identify them and work with them."

Poorest hit hardest

And it is the people living on the lowest rung of society who invariably tend to get left out.

Sinogra is a village near Anjar made up entirely of Kohlis. It was completely levelled in the earthquake.

A year later, it is a bleak and depressing sight - tents and temporary shelters form part of a dusty sprawl amid the ruins of the original village.

"There were 600 houses here. Not one was left standing," said Karsan, a local resident.

Half of Sinogra's residents lived in rented accommodation - their names do not figure in the land registers and, as a result, they have not received any money.

All of Sinogra's 600 houses were destroyed

Champaben, a widow in the village, had lived in her rented home for more than 50 years - making her automatically eligible for compensation under Indian law. But her application was turned down.

In distant Kavda, on the desert landscape of the Rann of Kutch and only an hour away from the Pakistan border, the mostly-Muslim residents have received almost no aid.

"There is no school for the village children," said Chetna, a community worker.

In another village, Bandi, more than 350 Muslim families have not received even the first instalment of compensation they need to begin rebuilding their houses.

"The well off and the higher-caste communities have taken most of the compensation - even greater than what they were entitled to," said Action Aid's Kuldip Sagar.

Mixed message

But in many reconstructed villages, there were signs that this was not always the case.

In Raidhanpar, a village being rebuilt by Christian charity Caritas, the BBC team was taken to see newly-built homes for the village's low-caste Kohli women.

"Our homes are beautiful," one woman said, her eyes shining. "They are much nicer than what we used to have."

A year after Gujarat's devastating earthquake, one is left with mixed feelings - admiration for some truly impressive progress is tempered with the stark reality that for many people, the struggle is only beginning.

But many remain optimistic.

"Give us two more years - and we will be back on our feet," said Kirti Khatri, who edits the oldest daily newspaper in the region, the Kachch Mitra (Friend of Kutch).

"Our tragedy was also our biggest opportunity. And we intend to take it."