Live Updates from the Relief Mission

• 1 Rice Cooking Utensil
• 1 Dal cooking Utensil
• 1 rice spoon
• 1 dal spoon
• 2 glasses
• 2 plates

Even though 500 utensil sets that were shipped from Bangalore reached Raichur, our volunteers were not successful in distributing the items today. The reasons responsible for the delay were:

• Delays from KSRTC
• Lack of availability of vehicles due to VIP visits
• the knowledge that some utensils may have been distributed in ChickManchur

In line with the philosophy to ensure material reaches most needy, we have re-assessed the requirement across the villages we were planning to support. The updated plan is as follows:

• On the banks of Krishna river, Chicksugur will be receiving the utensils tomorrow.

• On the banks of river Tungabhadra, there are villages where it is still impossible to go. People from these villages are living in a number of surrounding villages including Tungabhadra village and ChickManchur. Tomorrow morning, a second batch of volunteers will be visiting these villages to distribute the relief.

After these visits, assessment of the future needs can be given back to the other interested organizations/ individuals.

• Today, 75 utensil sets have been distributed to the most needy families of Chicksugur.

• Further details are awaited to decide the future plans.

1. Carefully note the location of the chosen villages. They were worst affected because of the rush of water towards the rivers.
2. Some more affected villages which had received media attention and hype including Chickmanchali, Talmari etc because many people had rushed that way.
3. You may note that we have distributed the aid across villages. This is because in each village we have hunted for the most affected families.

The following are few of the experiences our Volunteers has to share. Improper Distribution One thing we realized in the first day of the survey of the area was the gross inappropriateness of the distribution strategy that many people were adoption. We saw vehicles coming from Bangalore who used to park anywhere and start providing the relief material to the people who were crowding outside the door. Clearly the stringer and the more influential in the lot were always the beneficiaries. Some families were relatively nearer to the distribution point. they collected multiple sets of goods. Others which were further off received less aid. Influence of Village Netas In many villages the people were making use of the lists that the Gram Pradhan had prepared. These lists were doing little good. They were heavily biased on the basis of caste and sect. Some families got helped more and more while the others continued to suffer. Having seen this we adopted a method suggested by the locals who were helping the victims since day 1. We went on a survey across the village visiting each house. Wherever we say the need we gave the family plastic tokens. Eventually who all had the tokens came to a single common place to collect goods. This was by and large the best way we could figure out to ensure smooth and need based distribution without bias. Village Accountant: The heard of but rarely seen species We were told that the village accountant was the govt officer supposed to co-ordinate relief. We just heard of these people but never saw them in the villages. We were told that they were negotiating things in the DHQ while the relief agencies struggled. Lack of Relief Planning No one knew who is going where and how much need is there. We had to struggle for 2 days to identify the most needy villages because there was no official process to channelize inbound relief agencies. Food was supplied The Govt had taken adequate care to ensure supply of food grains.

Where are the houses? Visiting the village of Pannur more than 60 kms away from Raichur the volunteer from our side after walking through a huge pile of rubble announced, we will go to each house and give tokens. The relief worker from local area gently spoke - "Sir there are no houses here anymore". The realization struck then. The volunteer climbed a broken wall to see hundreds of shattered homes all around. The destruction was complete and the area nothing but a pile of rubble. 3 houses of a total of 300+ were still standing! The Irony When we visited the village of Ragunathanahalli we had to drive through 2 badly damaged bridges. Fortunately we were on bikes or else reaching there was impossible. We went to look at the damage on one side of the village. House after house we saw how walls had come down. We came face to face with people who had lost all their belongings under the rubble. Families keenly showed us the damage hoping to receive some help. By the time we came back to the road, our companions (local volunteers) requested us not to give any material to these houses. They told us that damage was far greater on the other side that they had visited. It did not make sense to us. We had seen such gruesome destruction and we were told that these people did not need help? Somehow we decided to accept the idea of starting to distribute the relief from the other side. Soon the thinking changed! We were dumbstruck to see what we saw on the other side. The people on the side that we had visited had some jewelry on them. They had a few wall collapses but they had shelter. On the other side nothing remained. Water had carried with itself all the belongings. We left after having distributed 75 sets. Now we knew the difference between the needy and the most needy!

We will be sending more utensils to the flood affected areas near Raichur the coming weekend, as there are reports of food and clothing have reached in sufficient quantities.

500 more sets of utensils will be dispatched to Raichur in batches of two, one tomorrow and the other on day after tomorrow along with 2 groups of volunteers.

Around 353 sets of utensils have been dispatched by KSRTC bus today. Along with the utensils, 60 shawls and 50 blankets have been dispatched. They are expected to reach Raichur tomorrow.

Another set of 150 utensils have been dispatched on Saturday night with 2 volunteers. Again KSRTC has been our mode of transport

Over 2 days, our volunteer teams have been working to find the most needy families and have distributed 250 sets of utensils in villages in Raichur district and also in one village in Andhra Pradesh

73 sarees have been transported today. About 4 Volunteers from our organization will be involved in the final phase of the distribution of the relief material spread over the weekend.

Today 27 sets of utensils ahve been distributed in Akshala village. The remaining utensils will be distributed tomorrow.

On sunday, the volunteers visited Katarki village in Manvi Taluk of Raichur district. TungaBhadra river is just 2-3 kms away from the village. The extent of damage was pretty bad. Following the previous method of going from one home to the other and see the extent of damage, the volunteers were doing their assessment when one person started shouting and demanded more material. This eventually led to a chaos which made the volunteers to leave the village immediately. In total 59 sets of utensils, 50 blankets, 6 shawls and 5 sarees were given out in this village after visiting more than 100 homes here.

Next the volunteers went to Daddala village. This looked even closer to the river. Almost the entire village had been destroyed. When they visited the homes, and in most cases there were no homes. After visiting more than 120 homes, coupons were given to 91 people and materials were distributed to them. One of the volunteer claimed this was the worst affected village he had seen.

On the way back, another few sets were given out to some people. In total 157 sets were distributed on Sunday. On both days put together, 184 sets were distributed with at least 90% going to genuinely needy people.

There is still materials left which is for close enough to be given to 90 families. They have been stored in Raichur. They will be distributed by next weekend.

The final round of distribution of utensils was carried out on 15th Novemeber 2009 at Ashraya Colony on the outskirts of Raichur. With this all work on filed in project Sparsh draws to a close