The Kerala government will construct two model townships for survivors of the Mundakkai–Chooralmala landslide, Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan announced in the presence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday.

The townships, both disaster-resilient and self-sufficient with all social and economic infrastructure contained within them, will be built at Elstone Estate (58.50 hectares)and Nedumbala Estate (48.96 hectares). As it stands, only a drone survey has been conducted. The field survey, which is presently progressing, will offer more clarity on the extent of land that will be acquired from the two estates. 

KALPETTA TOWNSHIP
The Elstone Estate land, near the Kalpetta bypass, will be the bigger township. It will come under Kalpetta Municipality.

Each individual house, with a total built-up area of 1000 sq ft with a foundation strong enough for an aspirational second floor and arranged like independent villas in multiple clusters, will come up within 5 cents.

Since the land neighbours the busy Kalpetta bypass, a commercial area has also been planned as part of the Kalpetta township. 

NEDUMBALA TOWNSHIP
The Nedumbala Estate land is in the Meppadi Panchayat. Its topography is undulating and is an agricultural area. The Chief Secretary said the topography, its hilly terrain in particular, will restrict the space for construction, and therefore, will have lesser number of housing units. 

However, each individual house in the Nedumbala Township will come up in 10 cents, double the area of the Kalpetta Township. 

Nonetheless, just like in the Kalpetta Township, the Nedumbala houses, too, will have a built-up area of 1000 sq ft. It is just that these houses will have far more open spaces for livelihood generation.

Both these townships will have all the necessary social and community infrastructure like schools, anganwadis, hospitals, sports and recreation centres, playgrounds, library, post office, bank and car parks. 

LIVELIHOOD NEEDS
A micro plan survey was conducted to assess the livelihood needs of 4658 individuals in 1084 survivor families in the affected wards of Mundakkai, Chooralmala and Attamala in Meppadi Panchayat. For nearly 192 individuals, it was agriculture. For 79, it was animal husbandry. For 1034, it was micro industries. And 585, the Chief Minister said, had "other livelihood options".

The micro survey had also identified 84 families with only women who required special assistance, 38 families with only widows, three families with just children, four families with only the elderly, and 87 families with just one member. 

DRAWING UP BENEFICIARIES
At the moment, the number of housing units in the two townships has not been decided. "The acquired lands are not adequate for all our rehabilitation needs," the Chief Minister said. ""We will have to see whether certain common areas within the township could be used for constructing more individual housing units," he said.

The Chief Minister said that the list of final beneficiaries will be released before January 25. There are two kinds of beneficiaries. One, families who have lost their homes fully.

And two, families whose houses have not been affected but exist in 'no go' zones. "We have asked them also to move out from their houses and they now live in rented houses," the Chief Minister said. 

"Though the beneficiary list was drawn up in two phases (first the homeless and then the residents of 'no go' zones), the rehabilitation will be done simultaneously," the Chief Minister said. 

CM'S WARNING
The list of the homeless has already been finalised. It is the second category list that is still incomplete. Earlier, there was local resistance when the panel led by John Mathai, a former scientist of the National Centre for Earth Science Studies, attempted to demarcate 'no go' zones.

"At that point, when the tragedy was still fresh, we did not want to force things. Now, we are going to complete the demarcation," the Chief Minister said and warned that it would be futile to put up another round of resistance.

IMPLEMENTING AGENCIES
The state cabinet approved the rehabilitation projects during its meeting today. The construction responsibilities have been assigned to the Uralungal Labour Contract Co-operative Society. Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) will be the project management consultant. Its subsidiary KIFCON will be the implementing agency. 

Three committees, supervised by the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary and District Collector, respectively, will be established to oversee the planning and execution of the rehabilitation project.

SPONSOR BENEFITS
The meeting of 38 sponsors who had expressed willingness to construct over 100 houses each was also held today, January 1. These included representatives of the country's opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, Karnataka government, DYFI, Kerala Catholic Bishops Conference (KCBC) and Sobha City.

A dedicated web portal will be opened for sponsors. Using an exclusive ID, these sponsors can track the progress of the township.