Taliye, MahadiLilabai Shirawale lost 12 members of her family – including a six-year-old granddaughter and a 10-month-old grandson – in a devastating landslide at Taliye village in Maharashtra’s Mahad taluka in July last year.
He also lost his house in the disaster.
Now, a year later, Shirawale and other surviving members of his family – son, nephew and a brother-in-law – are living with other survivors of the village in container homes, or temporary shelters provided by the Maharashtra government. After the landslide.
“We were promised a house by June this year. Nothing has been done till now. Now let’s see if we will be able to get home at least by next May or by June or July. nobody [from the government] even come to check on us [since the initial days following the disaster]”She claimed.
a string of landslideThe Konkan region was hit by heavy rains in July last year, including Maharashtra’s Raigad district. Taliye was the worst affected, where a landslide completely buried the village on July 22, 2021. it allegedly Beat 32 houses and 84 people were buried in the village.
A massive search and rescue operation was carried out and the Maharashtra government provided 24 containers as temporary shelters for the survivors. When ThePrint visited on Sunday, about six-seven families were living in the shelters.
Temporary shelters were set up on a site at a lower elevation than the village, about one and a half kilometer from where it was located.
The government had also promised to build permanent homes for the villagers as part of the rehabilitation of the victims. Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) is the executive body for the project.
However, the promised houses are not ready yet. When ThePrint visited the site earmarked for the project, in the same area where the temporary shelters currently stand, it found only a few cement squares, which looked like foundation blocks. Villagers claimed that these too had come to the fore only in May this year, when the then Maharashtra Housing Minister Jitendra Awhad visited the area.
“Before the pandemic we used to live in a rented house in Mumbai. But when my son lost his job during Covid, we went to the village. Now we have lost everything, we have no will to go anywhere. Our family, for which we wanted to work and earn, was also snatched away from us in a landslide,” Shirawale said.
Villagers claimed that life is difficult in these temporary shelters. He said space and infrastructure are lacking and often the lights and fans don’t even work. Villagers told ThePrint that if in the summer they were battling scorching heat, the monsoon brought with them problems with roofs and water leaks, adding that the landslides not only destroyed their homes, but for many people. livelihood options as well.
According to the villagers, agriculture was the most important means of livelihood in the village, although some people worked outside the village as well.
Shirawale said: “We lost our fields, our sons lost their jobs [as security personnel, labourers, or at the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation, because they were not in the frame of mind to return to work after the landslide], we have lost everything. Now all we feel is that those of us who are homeless should get a proper home. We have nowhere to go.” Some of the villagers who lost their homes have already gone to their relatives’ homes elsewhere.
ThePrint reached out to MHADA Vice President Anil Diggikar and Housing Secretary Milind Mhaiskar via text messages, but had not received any response till the time of publishing this report.
Nitin Mahajan, chief officer of Raigad division of MHADA and in-charge of rehabilitation of the Taliya, said that the houses are expected to be completed before the next monsoon.
“The work on the construction of the plinth has already started. The rest of the house is being built in the factory. The material is being prepared in the factory. We just have to collect them on site,” he said.
Mahajan blamed issues of land identification and land acquisition for the delay in construction. “It takes time. We are going to give a 600 sq ft house to every family. And this will be done pre-monsoon [next year],” They said.
Meanwhile, Bharatshet Gogawale, Shiv Sena MLA from Mahad, told ThePrint, “Yes, it [the construction] is in process. We are investigating it.”
inside the box
The temporary shelters provided by the state government to the survivors of Taliye are boxes of 20 ft x 10 ft x 10 ft made of asbestos walls and roof.
Fans, tube lights, cylinders (LPG), cots and water tanks were also installed in the shelters, but villagers claim that most of these have been broken.
“Look at the fan. It rusted and fell off,” said one of the villagers, Savita Gangwane.
He said: “Now there is only one fan for the five of us. It was difficult during the summer days. The entire container will be hot. There are mosquitoes too. And now, during monsoons, the roof and floor leak, and water seeps in. It is because of our compulsion that we are living like this.
Another villager Anita Kondalkar said, “For the last five months, even these tube lights are not working. But until they give us a house, we have nowhere to go,” she said, even as she pointed to her cot, another thing that’s broken.
Talking about last year’s devastating landslide, she recalled, “I survived because we (she, her husband and son all survived). My mother-in-law was in Mumbai so she too survived.
Each surviving family was placed in a shelter. Although the number of people in each depends on the number of members in the family, ThePrint found that each has an average of four people.
Some, such as Shirawale and Kondalkar, have expanded their containers.
“We have planted bamboo and extended the verandah” [to create some space]Shiravale said.
Displaced villagers also face the problem of water supply. “Right now we have water (from a well under the hill), but in summer, when the well dries up, it is very difficult. A tanker had to be called,” said Gangwane.
Walking through the well is another concern. “We are old people, we cannot carry pots of water on our heads and walk 2 km down to the well. And my daughter-in-law is pregnant, she can’t even,” she said.
nowhere to go
While the villagers alleged that no one from the government had come to check on them since the landslide, they also miss meeting relatives in Mumbai and elsewhere, even though they admit that they have to keep them in shelters. There is no room for were about to visit.
“Even our relatives from Mumbai are not coming to us as we do not have a place to live. Even if they come, where will they sleep? In the summer and even now no one came to visit us,” said Gangavane.
He said: “We don’t have the space ourselves, where will we put them? Fans don’t work. And at night because of mosquitoes, I can’t even sleep.
Sources of income have also dried up for many of them. Many people lost their jobs after the landslide and are now finding it difficult to find them.
“Many of our sons here are still struggling, though some have gone back to Mumbai or Mahad,” Shirawale said. “We lost everything and my son, who was working in Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), lost his job after the tragedy,” she said.
Families who lost members in the landslide received a compensation of Rs 5 lakh from the state government and this is the money on which their family has been dependent.
“We are currently surviving on the compensation given by the government and some money from here and there. The government should help with jobs for our youth,” she said.
Shirawale said: “We can live in this container provided by the government, but what do we eat? Now we don’t even have a farm and starting everything from scratch requires a lot of money. ,
According to Kondalkar, they often find it difficult to refill the LPG cylinder they get from the government. The refill cost is around Rs 1,100. “We’re back to cooking stove,” He said.
Taliye residents told ThePrint that they feel as if they have been thrown out of society.
“To whom shall we complain? The government should pay attention to us. We are living in very bad conditions. Our exile (deportation) is not ending,” Gangavane said.
(Edited by Polomi Banerjee)
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