Sherna Gandhy

The Tata Relief Committee's initiative to help those devastated by the Gujarat earthquake is a shining example of altruism, partnership and commitment

For Gujarat, January 26 evokes mixed emotions. India's Republic Day induces a passion for flag and country, but it is also a reminder of that deadly morning of 2001 when devastation visited the state on the back of an earthquake which destroyed lives and left homes and infrastructure in ruin.

The statistics were chilling: more than 15,000 dead, 166,000 injured and 600,000 rendered homeless across a ravaged state. Schools, hospitals, apartment blocks and village dwellings crumbled in the face of nature's fury. Measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale, the quake wiped out 10,000 small and medium industrial units. By the time the rumbling stopped, nearly 11 lakh homes had been obliterated. The total loss amounted to Rs 28,500 crore.

Help was quick to pour in from every part of the country. The Mumbai edition of the Tata Relief Committee (TRC), which had been set up to deal with this disaster, swung into action. Just two days after the calamity, a coordination committee was set up to orchestrate and supervise TRC's relied work in Gujarat.

Among those in the committee were Jamshed Kanga, a former municipal commissioner of Mumbai and ex-managing director of Tata Housing (when it rebuilt houses after the Latur earthquake of 1993), and Prasad Menon, the managing director of Tata Chemicals and the chairman of TRC.

On January 29, 2001, Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata appealed for donations to finance the work TRC had begun. Employees of almost every Tata company donated a day's salary each. Their respective companies then put in a matching contribution, with some companies exceeding their employees' contribution. The Sir Dorabji Tata Trust donated an amount of Rs 1.50 crore towards the TRC operations. The corpus of TRC's relief and rehabilitation fund totalled Rs 9.37 crore.

Since Kutch had suffered the biggest losses, it was here that TRC's volunteer teams began work. A relief camp was set up at Dhaneti, 21 miles from Bhuj, the epicentre of the quake. Saurashtra too was badly hit but was comparatively neglected in terms of assistance. So TRC put up another relief camp, in the school compound of Vavaniya village in Rajkot district. TRC also ensured that relief supplies were made available to 20 villages in the quake-hit zone. Besides Vavaniya these included Bagasara in Rajkot district and Amran in Jamnagar district. These three villages would become the focus of TRC's rehabilitation effort once its immediate relief operations were completed.

The Tata Group had decided to go it alone with its relief and rehabilitation efforts rather than contribute through a government fund. TRC was handed the task of pulling in resources from the various Tata companies. Apart from donating money, Tata companies contributed volunteers, architects, engineers and social workers to the relief endeavour.

Forbes Gokak (then part of the Tata Group), which had the contacts and the required expertise in Gujarat, handled the nightmarish logistics of the relief operation. Tata Chemicals, which has a manufacturing complex at Mithapur in coastal Gujarat, deputed many of its staff and was at the forefront of the relief effort.

Tata Motors sent two ambulances and coordinated the activity of despatching a water tanker, a bus and 30 volunteers. Tata Power set aside seven diesel generator sets, 2,000 blankets, 200 tents and 600 bottles of blood. The Tata Sports Foundation, Jamshedpur, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, sent volunteers to understand the needs of affected people. The data they collected was crucial when the rehabilitation of families began.

After months of battling against all odds to attend to the needs of the quake hit in Vavaniya, Amran, Bagasara and other villages, volunteers and senior Tata officers involved in the relief work knew they couldn't just walk away once the immediate needs of people were met. Village communities, marginalised at the best of times, simply do not have the resources to get back on their feet after a natural calamity of this scale.

TRC invited Praveen Pardesi, who had done commendable work as collector of Latur during the 1993 earthquake, to share his experiences on rehabilitation work. Then on deputation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), he detailed the areas where the Tata Group could be of help in the long term. When TRC finally decided to concentrate on rebuilding houses, it resolved to ally with someone like Mr Pardesi and, by extension, an organisation such as UNDP.

Vavaniya, with 1,200 families, was one of the more prosperous villages of Gujarat before the earthquake left it permanently scarred. TRC, UNDP and Centre for Environment Education (CEE), the designated non-governmental organisation, have done more than their bit to help the village back on to its feet.

CEE built 256 houses in Vavaniya and a further 245 on a relocation site. It restored the village's pride and joy: its two schools. The design for the boys' school was a copy of the much-loved original, with one significant change: it was earthquake resistant. Other additions included a water-harvesting system, toilets and a central courtyard dotted with trees. Today the school caters to 350 children.

The story with the girls' school, housed just behind the boy's school, is similar. Another boon for Vavaniya village is its new public health centre, which has accommodation for the resident doctor, quarters for visiting doctors and well laid out rooms that would put many of Mumbai's health centres to shame.

The building of a 245-home complex on a relocation site in New Navlakhi is perhaps the most touching tale TRC members have to tell. Residents of Miyana Vas, a part of Vavaniya, the people here owned no land and nobody was willing to sell them any. These workers from the Navlakhi port were left jobless after the cyclone of 1999. That they were Muslims only worsened the problem.

Just when all hope seemed lost, the Shrimad Rajchandra Rahat Nidhi Trust donated a piece of land 6 km away from Vavaniya. Here TRC helped create a new village. Electricity was procured at an additional cost and a bund and lake for water harvesting were constructed.

A short distance from Vavaniya as distance goes, but a long way behind in terms of development, is Bagasara. The 3-km road that connects the two places turns into a dangerous slush pond with the coming of the rains. On either side of it stretch miles of saltpans where many of the villagers are employed. It's a bleak landscape.

Most people here live below the poverty line. Their old houses were low-ceilinged, ill-ventilated hovels and some had just straw tied together to serve as walls. Behavioural Science Centre (BSC), the other non-governmental organisation involved in the TRC-UNDP project, built 177 new houses in Bagasara. Working within the stipulated budget and 250 square foot area per house, BSC's design provided the basics of good ventilation, a hard floor, pucca walls and a proper roof.

As you drive into Amran from Vavaniya, there's a distinct change. This is a larger village by head count, and it has many shops, a bus stand and restaurants. Drive a little further and you'll find all the activity revolving around a newly built structure: the boys' school. TRC has constructed 220 houses in this village; the designs here are different from those in Vavaniya and Bagasara.

On August 16, 2003, after two years of relief and rehabilitation work in Gujarat, TRC bid farewell to the three villages it had changed forever. In emotionally charged ceremonies held in Amran, New Navlakhi and Vavaniya, the villagers floored TRC's people with their gratitude. For the villages where TRC and its partners worked their small miracle, the future coming republic day will be less painful than any since that dreadful event more than two years back.

Oh captain, my captain If there’s one individual who stands apart in the collective endeavour to help the villages targeted under TRC's relief and rehabilitation initiative, it is Captain S. T. Rao. Employed with Forbes Gokak when the quake shook Gujarat, he handled the complicated logistics during the relief period, and then took charge of the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase of the project. "In the initial period we were not sure of how much money we would have and to what extent we could do our job," recalls Mr Rao. "All around there was disaster and trauma. We had to reach out and enable people to resume their lives." Interactions with the villagers guided TRC throughout the project. "We realised that these people needed better systems for water collection, breeding their cattle, clothing, and getting access to various government-controlled facilities, such as rations and medical aid." The most satisfying experience for Mr Rao has been the making of the New Navlakhi village. "These people never owned a home; they lived in tin sheds. For them, TRC was a godsend. As for me, I’ve done the best I could for people who had never had a home or even a little village of their own. We’ve done a lot more than merely provide relief."

Uploaded on October 2003