Friday, December 23 2005 14:28 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Nagapattinam (TN): Nearly a year after losing his livelihood to the killer tsunami, Dalits in this area still await Government relief.

Some among Dalits are being ignored by the state administration. The reasons cited they are not fisherman in its true sense.

Scores of people belonging to the Dalit community in this district, who though not proper fishermen, are involved in fishing-related activities like transporting of the catch, manufacture of baskets and cleaning of the vessels. Enough reasons, they say, for being excluded from the administration's relief programmes.

Around 50 Dalits in Venmanacherry, an interior village, who come to Nagapattinam harbor daily for work, lost their livelihood after the tsunami, which also washed away their equipments.

Now, with the sea turning rough and preventing the otherwise daring 'Meenavars' (fishermen) from venturing out into the blue, these Dalits find their day-to-day living tough and are at the mercy of private money lenders at their village who fleece them. "I had lost my bicycle and my two baskets in the tsunami, which also washed away two of my friends. Though we have given a number of representations to the administration, there has been no response," says Jayaraman.

Dalits involved in fishing-related occupation are of a lesser number when compared to those involved in agriculture and manual labor including masonry, carpentry and construction activity in this district.

"We used to earn on an average Rs 75 per day before the tsunami struck. For the first three months, life became too difficult for us as the fishermen were not going out to the sea. Though our life slowly limped back to normal after that, sea has once again turned rough, pushing us into penury," says Raja, a boat cleaner in Nagapattinam.

With daily existence turning difficult, these people have started borrowing from local money lenders who, sensing their helplessness, charge very high rates of interest for the paltry amount they take as loan.

"Around 938 Dalits have lost their livelihood in the tsunami, which has also damaged 451 hectares of agricultural land where majority of them work," says Ravi Chandran of Human Rights Federation for Dalit Rights (HRFDR), an NGO.

"The Government assistance to the tsunami-affected excludes most Dalits, as they live in inland areas and have not suffered casualties. However, their livelihoods have been severely hampered," he says.

Similar cases of exclusion of Dalits from relief schemes have been reported from Vanaigiri, Thirumuallaivasal and Thandavankulam areas of the district, according to NGOs active in rehabilitation efforts here.

The administration says it is 'trying its best' to include all affected people within the relief and reconstruction efforts while denying reports of discriminating these people on the basis of caste.

"We are paying compensation for those indirectly affected by the tsunami on a case-to-case basis, with the maximum ceiling being Rs 10,000. If such exclusion has taken place, we will definitely try to rectify it," Nagapattinam District Collector J Radhakrishnan told sources. However, tsunami-survivors in Dalit hamlets allege the administration is dragging its feet on the issue.

"We do not have the resources to go to the town, more than 40 kms away, to tell the authorities of our plight. Those in the coastal town limits have got their grievances addressed while we in the interior areas are still waiting for the authorities' help," says Parthipan of Venmanacherry.