When ordinary villagers take up arms to protect the relief material they are receiving from the administration, it is a telling comment on the crisis management skills of the West Bengal government. Discontent and complaints of uneven distribution of relief following a natural disaster are as regular as the floods. Every time, the administration seems to have been caught on the wrong foot; every time, it appears to be disconcerted at the scale of the disaster. This is puzzling: West Bengal lies in the monsoon belt and is a riverine state; there is advanced technology to predict rainfall; certain rivers have a pattern of flooding — and 30 years and more should have given enough time to build safety measures that could lessen the damage and give vulnerable populations time to move. If all this is too much to expect, and the government and its administrative arms feel that nothing more is needed than relief after the event, then the distribution of relief, at least, should by now have been put into a streamlined system.

Why should desperation drive people, who have lost homes, crops, cattle, sometimes loved ones, and access to food and drinking water, to robbing and looting, to anger and aggression? Incidents of grabbing, looting and breaking into stores of relief material have spiralled this time. While it is a law and order problem and points towards an administration not quite in control, it also suggests that people are angrier than before, ready to fight harder for what they feel they need. There is also a further confusion about the routes of relief distribution. Elected representatives in the local bodies have been excluded because the new members have not been inducted — even a month after the elections — and the old members cannot or will not take the responsibility. There may be logic in not involving local bodies, but that, then, should apply every time, not just once for a specific reason. What comes through is the total lack of established practice that ultimately disguises itself in a constant exchange of blame. Is managing the aftermath of a seasonal disaster such an impossible task? Those responsible for management, whether elected or appointed, certainly have a lot to answer for.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080626/jsp/opinion/story_9456434.jsp#

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