Staying afloat after the deluge
Kerala is slowly picking up the pieces after floods hit the state. A look at the devastation reveals the challenging task ahead for the people and state govt
Thankamma needs to get to Kottayam. Since the floods hit in August, the 68-year-old who lives in Pathanamthitta district’s Sabarimala forest reserve area has not been able to visit the Kottayam Medical College, where she has been receiving esophageal cancer treatment for the past few years. Thankamma, who is from a scheduled caste community, has lived all her life by the Pampa river. None of Thankamma’s children—four sons and a daughter—scattered across Pallakad, Pathanamthitta and Thiruvananthapuram, were able to send her the bus fare, as their daily wage work came to a standstill.
One way to understand the scale of devastation that Kerala has faced is to look at the numbers. Around 10,000 km of highways have been destroyed because of the floods and landslides that affected the state in August. Over 45,000 hectare of farmland have been damaged. As per the revenue ministry, 11,000 houses have been wrecked, and 111,000 houses partially damaged. The state announced monetary rehabilitation: ₹10 lakh loan to re-launch small and medium scale businesses; a ₹1 lakh interest-free loan to buy household items. More than a million people were displaced by the floods; over 400 died and the state announced ₹4 lakh ex-gratia compensation to their families.
The Kerala State Electricity Board estimates the loss to its infrastructure to be ₹350 crore, and its revenue loss to be ₹470 crore.
The Public Works Department estimates a loss of ₹5,000 crore based on the damage caused to roads and bridges. The tourism ministry, whose revenue in 2017 was 10% of the state’s GDP, estimates a loss of ₹1,000 crore worth of business till December due to cancellations.
An initial assessment by the state pegs the damage at ₹19,512 crore, said chief secretary Tom Jose. The state has asked the centre for ₹6,000 crore, needed just for repair work. However, the centre has only extended ₹600 crore. On September 15, state finance minister Thomas Isaac tweeted that the centre “would hardly foot the bill.”
“One is revenue expenditure, which includes repair and maintenance of houses, roads, support for livelihood, various types of compensation to be made to people and relief work. There is no way we can raise much revenue because GST has taken (away) our right to tax. The central government is not giving money. So how do we meet this? We’re telling central government, give us National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), so that takes care of livelihood. Still we will require ₹6,000 crore. (Part of this) we are trying to raise from people.
That’s why we are asking employees to give one month’s salary. We are also appealing to Malyalees outside (the country),” the minister told HT. The Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) hopes to raise ₹50,000 crore, which will go into infrastructure projects such as industrial parks and coastal roads. The state also plans to borrow from the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank—the amount will be determined after the two institutions complete their rapid damage need assessment.
In the aftermath of the floods, a ‘Rebuild Kerala’ vision has found centerstage as experts, politicians and Malayalees around the world weigh in on what this should entail.
Everyone HT met—ministers, bureaucrats, residents alike— spoke of three main things this entails: sustainable construction, such as rainwater harvesting; a serious re-look at management of the state’s 35 big dams whose untimely opening worsened the flood situation (according to a 2017 Comptroller and Auditor General of India report, disaster management plans had not been made for any of the state’s 61 dams till 2016); and a greater consciousness regarding land use, especially as Kerala has moved to being a cash crop-rich state.