Community Participation in Post-disaster Reconstruction: Lessons Learned from the Maharashtra Emergency Earthquake Rehabilitation Program

On September, 30, 1993, an earthquake struck the Indian state of Maharashtra, killing about 8,000 people and damaging some 230,000 houses in Latur, Osmanabad, and eleven other districts. With the help of the World Bank, the government of Maharashtra created the Maharashtra Emergency Earthquake Rehabilitation Program (MEERP). The program institutionalized community participation and ensured that beneficiaries were formally consulted at all stages of implementation of the program. The document proposed that every village create a village-level committee headed by the Sarpanch (head of village council), and that membership on the committee include women and disadvantaged groups. Consultative committees were also proposed at the level of the taluka (an administrative unit that includes several villages) and the district. To ensure that the village-level committees interacted with the project management unit at all levels, the government of Maharashtra took an innovative step and appointed two respected community organizations, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and the Society for Promotion of Resource Area Centre, to carry out the process.

The MEERP divided communities into two categories: communities that needed to be relocated and those that need to be reconstructed, repaired or strengthened. The 52 villages that sustained the worst damage were selected for relocation; the remaining villages were to be reconstructed repaired, or strengthened. The Tata Institute for Social Sciences worked in the 52 relocation vi11ages, comprising 28,000 families. Society for Promotion of Resource Area Centre organized community participation in 1,500 villages, comprising some 190,000 families, in which rebuilding or repair was to take place.

Relocated villages

Housing construction was organized primarily by engineering consultants and contractors, except in the cases of a few smaller villages, which were handled by donor organizations and NGOs. While the beneficiaries were not directly involved in construction, they were heavily involved in the decisionmaking stages, including the selection of beneficiaries, identification of relocation sites, layout of the village, design of houses, and provision of amenities. At these stages, government officials, engineering consultants, and community participation consultants had extensive consultations with the entire village community. Final decisions were made in a plenary meeting of the village. Rural resettlement planners worked with the engineering consultants to facilitate the process of community participation.

The open consultation process led to frequent changes in the layout of villages and the design of houses and in interference in actual construction. It was originally envisaged that the plots would be allotted to the beneficiaries before actual construction began. This process led to conflicts within some villages, as certain plot locations were preferred over others. When plot allotment caused excessive delay in construction, the process was postponed until construction was completed. During the construction stage, only the village level committee and the community participation consultants interacted with the project management unit regarding the progress and problems of reconstruction. Once the construction was completed, the allotment of houses to beneficiaries was again taken up, in open consultation with the entire village.

Reconstructed, repaired, or strengthened villages

Homeowners took on the responsibility of repairing, retrofitting, and strengthening their houses, with materials and financial and technical assistance provided by the government. The project management unit opened a bank account for each of the 190,000 eligible homeowners, who received coupons for construction materials. A junior engineer appointed at the village level provided technical assistance to the homeowners to ensure that the houses were earthquake resistant.

Because not all residents in a village were eligible to participate in the program and the beneficiaries of the program were dispersed over 1,500 villages, the VLC was not an appropriate vehicle for involving community members. Instead, each village formed a beneficiary committee to interact with the project management unit. In most villages, these committees consisted of women's self-help groups. The community participation consultants appointed one communicator, generally a woman, to interact with each of the self-help groups. Training programs were also organized in villages with large numbers of beneficiaries, where residents were informed of their entitlements and the processes to be followed. After a year and a half, the program was in full swing. With such a large number of villages and beneficiaries involved, the program took on the dimensions of a housing movement, renewing the housing stock in the entire area.

A people's project

As the MEERP progressed and results materialized, community participation in the rehabilitation received greater acceptance. While project management unit officials were initially skeptical of the community participation process, they later came to recognize it as an effective tool for dealing with difficulties that arose during implementation.

Participation also had a positive psychological effect on communities. Involving local people in the reconstruction process helped them to overcome their trauma. Recognizing the psychological importance of the reconstruction program the government began reconstruction in small villages even before the rehabilitation program began, appealing to donors, corporate bodies, NGOs, and religious organizations to "adopt" villages for reconstruction. Some of these organizations also worked on social issues, such as schooling for children and campaigns against alcohol consumption.

Over time the MEERP became a people's project. The participatory process opened many informal channels of communication and accessibility between the people and the government, helping to narrow the gap between the two. Beneficiaries became extremely conscious of their entitlements and worked hard within the process to secure them. Individuals who felt their grievances were not addressed appropriately at the village and taluka level could approach the district authorities and the government in Mumbai. Information on the program, its processes, and mechanisms for redress was accessible, and the level of awareness was high.

Source: Vatsa 1999.