Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday inaugurated the first phase of rehabilitation of landslide survivors in Chowarmala-Mundakai, handing over houses built as part of the town to 178 families and promising to rehabilitate others before the start of the southwest monsoon in June.
At the ceremony held at Kalpetta, the headquarters of Wayanad district, the Prime Minister described the township built in Elston district with all basic facilities as a “testament to Kerala’s determination to build back better”. He also handed over land titles to a number of beneficiaries at this event.
Comprising anganwadis, a primary health centre, a community market and a children’s entertainment area, the township project is set to include 410 single-storey houses on seven cents of land each. The work, which has been contracted to the Uralungal Labor Contract Cooperative Society, is scheduled to be completed by June. The 1,000 square feet houses have a master bedroom, two additional rooms, a kitchen, a dining hall and a storage area with basic interior works.
When the project is completed, 402 families consisting of 1,662 people will reside in the town.
“As we deliver homes to these families, we must remember that our efforts have never been easy. In one night, disaster wiped out an entire region. This was a situation every country would hate to be in. This is where we started. We cannot remove the pain of our minds with medicine. But we can comfort each other in this pain.” CM Vijayan said.
The Prime Minister spoke about the challenges faced by the state government in moving forward with the town’s rehabilitation project and completing it in record time.
“There was false propaganda, denying assistance to the Union government, misleading victims of the disaster and creating legal hurdles. There were even calls not to donate a single penny to the Disaster Relief Fund. Some media platforms also tried to discredit the rehabilitation efforts.”
The Chief Minister stressed that the intention of the state government was not just to build houses for the survivors, but to ensure better living conditions for them in the future.
“This is the guiding principle of ‘building back better’ that we followed,” he said. “Beside the houses, we made sure to include a football field, a community hall, disaster shelters, shops, waste collection facilities, 10 sewage treatment plants, and 2 kilowatt solar power plants for each house. There are green spaces in front of each group of houses.”
CM Vijayan said Kerala’s model of compassion and solidarity, where people rise above differences to support each other, has once again attracted global attention.
More than 250 people were killed on July 30, 2024, in a series of landslides in Mundakai-Choralmala villages in Wayanad. Dozens were injured and thousands displaced. Experts concluded that the landslide was caused by heavy monsoon rains falling on the hills above the village in the days before the disaster.
