Four months after cyclone Ockhi wreaked havoc in Kerala’s coastal villages, the latin Catholic Church, to which most of victims belonged, unleashed a scathing attack against the CPI(M)-led lDF Government for its alleged lapses in ensuring proper distribution of relief funds and other assistance to the families of the fishermen who were killed and had gone missing in the tragedy.
“Four months have passed since the cyclone hit the state but the government has so far given compensation to only 49 families. We have complaints and unhappiness over the government’s approach. Also, it has not fulfilled its promise of rehabilitation,” latin Catholic Church Archbishop M Soosa Pakiam told newsmen in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday.
The State Government had in January announced Rs 20 lakh each to the families of the fishermen killed in the cyclone as relief. It had promised to give a similar amount as compensation to families of the fishermen who went missing. “The Government should not mistake the silence of the affected people as their helplessness,” the Archbishop said.
According to State Fisheries Minister J Mercykutty Amma of the CPI(M), the number of Keralites killed in the cyclone was 52. She had also said on March 19 that 90 Kerala fishermen had gone missing. Majority of the victims were fishermen from hamlets like Poonthura, Vizhinjam and Adimalathura in Thiruvananthapuram district.
Archbishop Soosa Pakiam complained that the government had failed in providing jobs and facilities of medical treatment and education it had announced for the families of the victims. “Nothing has been done. There are suspicions about the utilisation of funds allocated for cyclone relief. Social auditing should be done to clear doubts,” he said.
No solution had so far been found to the hardships of the fishermen who had lost their boats, nets and other implements in the cyclone, the Church complained.
“A minimum of Rs 60 crore is needed to meet such expenses,” the Archbishop said, adding that several meetings with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and others had produced no positive results.
“We met the Chief Minister several times and others to raise these issues. They keep saying that everything can be done… There has been delay on the part of the government,” he said.
The government had said in January that the compensation to families of those who had gone missing would be extended after completing the formalities in this regard.
The Church asked the Kerala Government to learn its lessons in this matter from Tamil Nadu which had also borne the brunt of the cyclone. “The Tamil Nadu Government has already distributed Rs 10 lakh each to the 177 families. That money is already in their bank accounts,” Fr Eugene H Pereira, Auxiliary Bishop, Thiruvananthapuram said.