Thursday, January 6 2005 13:04 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Nagapattinam: With relief operations gathering pace and disbursement of relief packages going on in full swing, the district administration, would be focusing on rehabilitation and reconstruction of houses for tsunami victims as its next stage of relief efforts.

"Our next priority is rehabilitation and reconstruction of houses. But, it may take little more time," the State rural development secretary, Santha Sheela Nair, who is co-ordinating the relief operations in the Nagapattinam district said.

In many villages, we have restored roads, power facilities and water supplies. With an aim to restoring normalcy, we have also asked the schools to start functioning," she added.

We have so far identified over 7,000 families in the district who would need immediate alternative shelters. However, we expect that there might be around 12,000 to 15,000 families in need of alternative shelters, she said.

She said that the district administration was in the process of negotiating with a few authorities of temples and mosques to build temporary shelters in the lands owned by them. The officials from the revenue department have been asked to carry out this process.