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STATES: GUJARAT
The VIP Catalyst
Vajpayee's visit infuses new hope in the quake-hit
areas with tardy rehabilitation picking up and victims getting a bagful
of sops
By Uday Mahurkar
When Prime Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee left Bhuj airport last week after a visit to quake-ravaged
Kutch, he had reason to be pleased. In a span of two days, he had managed
to wipe the despair off the faces of its people and replace it with hope.
In the process of picking up the pieces of their shattered lives after
the horror of January 26, the Kutchis weren't expecting much. The lackadaisical
approach of the state Government had ensured that rehabilitation was tardy,
and most sops it had announced were promises on paper.
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AT GROUND ZERO: The remains of Anjar
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But Vajpayee seems to have more than made up
for it. In the packed days that he spent in Kutch, he laid the foundation
stone for a Rs 100-crore hospital along with a medical college in Bhuj,
flagged off a direct train from Bhuj to Mumbai and announced, among other
things, a grant of Rs 70 crore for drought-proofing, Rs 160 crore for
rebuilding schools and a five-year excise holiday on items manufactured
in Kutch. The last even triggered a decision by state Chief Minister Keshubhai
Patel to sanction a five-year sales-tax holiday.
The impact of the tax holidays was almost immediate.
Says Ahmedabad-based chartered accountant V.K. Soni: "Within 24 hours
of the announcements, I received five inquiries from industrialists wanting
to set up units in Kutch. One of them was for a project worth Rs 70 crore."
Hardly surprising since the dual tax holiday ensures that an industrialist
setting up shop in Kutch will recover his project cost well within five
years.
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(From left) Keshubhai, Varma, Vajpayee and
L.K. Advani take a look at reconstruction work in Dudhai village
in Kutch
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Concessions apart, the prime minister's visit
visibly put the Gujarat Government in overdrive. For over three months,
lakhs of tonnes of debris lay unattended in the devastated areas. The
task of clearing it began just last month but in Bhuj and Anjar, as much
as 30-40 per cent of the rubble had been removed by the time Vajpayee
landed.
In Anjar, Group 2001, a newly formed organisation
of quake victims, had long been battling with the state Government to
review the rehabilitation package sanctioned for them. The group wanted
larger land allotments to be made on an individual-case basis instead
of the blanket sanctions under the 100 sq m and 125 sq m categories. It
had also been opposing the levy of the Rs 300-per-sq-m development charge,
which it maintained was very steep. The state Government had refused to
yield on both counts but on the eve of Vajpayee's visit, it announced
that it would give additional land to people who could pay for it and
also withdrew the development charge for the 100 sq m and 125 sq m plots.
"That the Government yielded to some of our demands on the eve of
the prime minister's arrival is evidence that the visit has made a difference
for the earthquake-affected," says Professor Jaisheel Sitapara of
Group 2001. However the group was not completely satisfied even after
meeting Vajpayee because some of its demands-like a white paper on rehabilitation
work-are still pending.
There were marked changes elsewhere as well.
Although the demand for a resurvey of the damage in Kutch had been pending
with the state Government for months, it was not until a fortnight before
Vajpayee's arrival that it pressed 250 engineers from the Narmada project
to undertake the study. Similarly, the disbursement of compensation to
those whose homes were destroyed began only two weeks ago. By the time
the prime minister landed, 10 out of the 42 villages in the Khavda area
had been covered. "I wish the prime minister keeps coming here,"
says Sama Vyedna Jaysingh, a quake victim from Chota Dinara village, adding
that things would never have moved otherwise. "Even if he doesn't
actually visit us, the mere announcement of such a plan is enough to keep
things going," echoes Nikhil Pandya, a journalist.
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