The end of the year 2011 was disastrous and the dawn of the
new year 2012 was distressful for the people of Puducherry union territory and
Villupuram, Cuddalore and parts of Nagapattinam and Tiruvarur districts. In
particular, cyclone ‘Thane’ caused havoc in Puducherry and Cuddalore district.
People of Cuddalore district went without food, drinking water, houses, milk
for children, electricity etc., and living in primitive conditions for days together
due to total indifference and laxity on the part of State administration.
The Regional Meteorological Office in Chennai was working
round-the-clock on December 29 forecasting the movement, direction and velocity
of the cyclone and where and when it would cross the shore. Particularly, the
Regional Met Director S.R.Ramanan, with high sense of duty and commendable
concern for the people, stayed put in the office overnight on Dec.29-30 giving
hourly bulletins on Television channels and advising precautionary measure to
tackle cyclone. Thanks to satellite pictures, the forecasts were very precise
in the timing, velocity and area of cyclone.
The Met department forecasts are more meant for the
administration – State government and local bodies – to take preventive
measures to save the lives and properties of people so as to reduce losses to
the extent possible. In the ports, signals are hoisted and fishermen are
advised against venturing into the sea expecting high tides. Rescue and Relief
teams consisting of Fire Services, Police, Electricity Board personnel, PWD,
Transport, Telecommunication personnel etc., should be arranged and kept ready
for deployment. People in coastal areas, slum dwellers and flood-prone areas
should be evacuated. Very old and condemned buildings should be either
demolished or vacated. Keep community centres, halls and shelters ready for
accommodating evacuated people and those rendered homeless. Store sufficient
food, special diet for children and drinking water, kerosene etc., ready for
distribution. Police force should be deployed to curb activities of anti-social
elements and thieves. PWD should be kept in attendance with men and material to
carry out immediate repairing and restoration of roads, tanks and tank bunds
and removing fallen trees on the roads. Buildings which can be used as storm
shelters may have suitable marking on them so that they can be immediately
identified as shelters.
For four days prior to the cyclone Thane hitting the coast
on the early morning of Dec.30, the Met office was issuing bulletins since the
formation of depression in the Bay of Bengal
and its movements and intensification into a cyclone. Any alert government
caring for its people would have immediately plunged into action and taken the
above mentioned precautionary measures to minimize loss of life and property of
people and damages to public infrastructure. Monitoring and Emergency teams
should have been formed at the state and district levels. But nothing was done
by this regime and its CM. Even after the cyclone hit Cuddalore and parts of
Villupuram districts on Dec.30, Jayalalitha announced Rs.100 crore for relief
and returned to her residence when actually she should have convened a review
meeting (not a brief consultative meeting that she conducted) with the Chief
Secretary, secretaries of the departments, the DGP and ministers available to
assess damages and direct relief operations. She went to attend ‘the crucial’
general council meeting of her party after the ‘expulsion’ of her confidante
aide V.N.Sasikala and her family members and to warn her party cadre against
having any dealing with the ‘neo-traitors’.
For full four days after the cyclone hit Cuddalore and
Villupuram districts and caused havoc, which was worse than the tsunami impact
in 2004, the people of the district languished without homes, food, drinking
water and power, but no relief was arranged by the district administration. A
cup of tea was sold for Rs.15 and an idly for Rs.10-15. No arrangement,
whatsoever, was made to settle people who had lost their huts and houses,
provide food and drinking water, remove uprooted trees to restore roads and
transportation, restore power supply etc., As years-old trees and groves of
coconut, jack fruit and cashew were uprooted and tens of thousands of people
lost their livelihood for years to come as the trees will take several years to
grow. Ten thousand families of fishermen have lost their boats; five thousand
families of traders and middlemen dealing in fishes have also lost their
livelihood.
For the Tiruchi byelection, Jayalalitha deployed all her
ministers with each minister in charge of a ward, with a lot of money to carry
on election work. But excepting one local minister, who too could not do
anything in the absence of any directive from the CM, no other minister were
sent to the affected area.
While Puducherry Chief Minister and his ministers started
inspecting and assessing losses and damages, consoling affected people and
arranging relief right from the afternoon on Dec.30, the State and district
administrations in Tamil Nadu were in deep slumber as the Chief Minister here.
As the CM so were the officials. In spite of visits of Union Home Minister
Thiru P.Chidambaram and Minister of State attached to the PM, Thiru
V.Narayanaswamy, who toured the affected areas and demanded the State
government to send its interim report to the Centre for relief, the State
government did not send any report to the Centre, demand for immediate relief
or visit of a central team, whereas Puducherry government sought Rs.2,000 crore
as interim relief.
Only after DMK President on Jan.2 announced his visit to the
affected areas on Jan.4 and 5, Jayalalitha convened the meeting of ministers
and officials the next day on Jan.3 and announced her flying visit to Cuddalore
on Jan.4 to handover relief to a select group of the affected.
Meanwhile, the nine-member Central team led by Lokesh Jha,
Joint Secretary in the Union Home Ministry, constituted to assess the damage
caused by cyclone Thane arrived on its own on Jan.7 and held discussions with
the Chief Secretary before their visit to cyclone hit areas on Jan.9. On Jan.4
and 5, 88-year old Kalaignar, unmindful of his health, undertook a hectic
journey by road through Puducherry, Villupuram, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam districts
for about 600 km trecking rough and tough roads devastated by cyclone and rain,
met thousands of people, who narrated their woes with tears and consoled them.
He announced a relief of Rs.50 lakh from DMK Trust for the affected people besides
relief to be provided by local party units. People were moved to see him taking
so much pain at his advanced age, to meet them in person to console them. That
showed his concern and care for the people of Tamil Nadu, whether he was in
power or not. The official organ of the ADMK ridiculed Kalaignar’s offer of
Rs.50 lakh from the DMK for relief work, as ‘meagre and that too from the Trust
and not on his personal behalf’, as if Jayalalitha had announced several crores
from the ADMK and on her behalf.
In contrast, on the same day (Jan.4) Jayalalitha arrived by
helicopter at the helipad in Cuddalore by 3.40 pm drove by car to the Kalyana mandapam
where a select group of affected people were kept waiting for her, and reached
there at 3.45 pm. She distributed relief to a few persons posing for
photographs and read out a brief speech in which she said, ‘a bright future is
awaiting you’ and left the hall at 3.57, all the show finished in 12 months.
The people, with empty stomach and thirsty throats for days together and
languishing in darkness without electricity, groaned in contempt when she
prophesied a bright future for them. While men agonizingly laughed away her
comment, women cried out ‘கூரை ஏறி கோழி பிடிக்க முடியாதவ, வானம் ஏறி வைகுண்டம் போக வழி சொல்றா’ (She, who cannot climb over the roof to catch the hen, shows the path to reach
the heaven climbing over the sky).
People of the cyclone-affected areas saw for themselves the
contrast between the painstaking visit of Kalaignar to meet them in person and
the flying visit of their Chief Minister, who is afraid of facing the people,
who elected her to power.
Although the media, by and large, magnified the 12-minute
visit of Jayalalitha by helicopter (as though it is a flood-affected areas) and
played down Kalaignar’s intensive and extensive tour of the affected areas by
road, people in other parts of Tamil Nadu will also understand the difference
between the Leader who emerged from them and the one thrust upon them, sooner
or later. They will curse themselves that ‘the Nature does not seem to take kindly
to their folly of repeatedly electing Jayalalitha to power and vent its fury in
the form of cyclone or tsunami!’
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