Relief Distribution in Nagaladinne village of Nandavaram Mandal of Kurnool district

Date 30 October, 2009

Place:  Nagaladinne village

Time: 10:30 am

It was a rare sight in front of the primary school of the Nagaladinne village on Friday. Instead of kids queuing up for their classes, there were queues of men and women, waiting for  their turn to come to get the Hygiene Kit in relief the distribution programme organised by the Oxfam India.

Nagaladinne is a village with more than 3500 households, out of which more than 2500 families are of weavers' community. The whole village got submerged in the floods that came on October 2, 2009. More than 70 percent of the people's houses got fully damaged in the floods.

After doing a village assessment survey with the help of its partner Vijaya Mahila Mandali, Oxfam decided to provide water and sanitation support services to 1600 households of that village. After the survey, each identified family was given a Beneficiary Card to avail the services Oxfam was providing. Oxfam distributed a hygiene kit that includes 2 twenty litre buckets with lid, 2 mugs, 2 washing soap bars, 2 bathing soap bars, 4 packers of ORS and a fleece blanket.

The distribution was supposed to be started at 10 am but the trucks carrying the material delayed for an hour and it was 12 noon, when Oxfam team with VMM volunteer prepared around 200 individual hygiene kits for distribution. By that time, there were more than 500 men and women queued up in front of the distribution centre. People were getting restless because the distribution was getting delayed. And the distribution finally started. There were separate queues for men and women controlled by NGO volunteers.    

As soon as the first lot got out of the distribution centre. I caught a few beneficiaries to get their feedback. My first encounter was with Farida Ali, a 30 year old woman in Nagaladinne village. She was overwhelmed to see the buckets with lid. "We always used those cheap plastic pitchers that are not very convenient to use. These lidded buckets would be durable and hygienic for storing water. I have two small kids and the material distributed would help keep my family healthy and safe from diseases", she added.

The headmaster of the school, where we were doing the distribution pointed out that the emergence need for the villagers is the temporary shelters which no one is providing. It is a hill task which government is also not talking about.   

Eighty year old, Gajalamma was also very happy to get the relief from Oxfam. "The distribution by Oxfam was very organised and that's the reason all needy persons got the material. All other agencies who came for distribution didn't look for needy people. Generally people who are powerful and big, get things but not the needy" 

When I came back inside the distribution centre, I saw all those prepared kits were gone  and everyone in the team was hurrying up making those kits because the crowd standing outside in hot sun was getting impatient. NGO Volunteers, Oxfam staff even the South India Office Manager, Shaik Anwar, Finance Officer, Someshwar Rao and Programme Coordinator, Livelihoods at Hyderabad office who came to oversee the distributions were seen engrossed making kits. I couldn't hold myself and went inside the small school room where the kits were in making. But could say anything cause the action was so fast and there was no place to accommodate anyone in that room. I stood outside to manage the crowd so that people can be sent in small batches of 4 and 6 to get their kits.

It was 3 pm and the hands were exhausted without any tea break or lunch. Still there were 400 kits left to be distributed. The target was to finish it by 5 pm so that the team can leave well on time safely. When I said safely, there was a reason to it. There was a big lot of people who was found carrying fake identities for getting the benefits. There were cases in which actual beneficiary's name was visibly removed to replace some other name. We refused to give any kit to people whose identities were not appropriate or verified. These people were creating a loud dialogue outside the distribution centre accusing Oxfam for not giving them the kits.               

At around 4.45 pm, the distribution was closed with around 70 kits left. People who didn't got the kits barged into the section where Oxfam staff was concluding the paper works and other formalities. But our partner VMM intervened and got the situation fixed.

Nagaladinne village Sarpanch, G Nagendrappa while giving his concluding said, "'I am so happy with Oxfam's distribution process. People of the village are satisfied with the quality of material distributed. It is a unique approach I have seen that Oxfam's focus was on promoting public health with their distribution material. Villagers received enough food items but no one looked into the aspect of hygiene and sanitation. These things are going to stay with the villagers for long time", added the Sarpanch.   

Here it becomes necessary to mention that three policemen who were on duty at the distribution point were also amazed that the distribution went on so peacefully. They narrated incidents in almost all distributions carried out by other NGOs.  

Oxfam staff who were present at this particular distribution point was Banku Bihari, Akshay Biswal, Dipankar Patnaik, Lata Krishnan. Mohan Parmar, Ambey Suresh, Makar who wasn't present at the spot but did all counting and loading of trucks from Oxfam's warehouse, public health experts, Jane Alam and Jitu, Photographer Sam Spickett and myself, Manisha Sharma.

We left the village at around 6.30 pm and the first nearest halt from Nagaladinne village was the Annapoorna Café where we had coffee and famous Uttapams of Anna.