Maharashtra Flood Recovery

Reaching out marginalised households for early recovery assistance during the floods in Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra witnessed very heavy rains in the second week of August’ 2019. This resulted in flood conditions across various districts affecting lakhs of people, resulting in crop losses, affecting farmlands, damage to kuchha houses, damage to roads connecting villages to block/ district headquarters, power failure affecting piped water supply and submergence of hand pumps.

Sangli and Kolhapur were two of the worst affected districts by floods. People had returned to their villages and there was an immediate need for hygiene items and dry ration items amidst the flood affected households as it would take a couple of days to weeks before they got their house in order. Household items had been washed away, women and girls had no access to sanitary provisions.

Our Activities

CARE India covered the worst affected households that were marginalised and excluded. They were targeted for early recovery assistance with the following considerations:

Marginalised (Dalit and minority households), extremely poor communities with low coping capacity who were severely affected by floods and had suffered damage to their houses.
From amongst the worst affected, CARE focused on single women headed households, households having pregnant and lactating mothers, persons with disabilities, and people from socially excluded tribes and Dalit communities.
We facilitated the formation and enhancement of SMCs.

Impact:

There was a recognisable shift in the general attitude towards labourers from Kanwad village, through CARE India’s intervention. The villagers provided them with tea and breakfast and supported them as members of their community.
There was an increase in support for rebuilding infrastructure, which subsequently saw an increase in employment for labourers and other residents of the villages.
The ration kits distributed provided immediate relief to thousands of families affected by the floods and aided them in regaining their security and stability.

Learnings:

There was a tremendous increase in knowledge and skills (on emergency procurement, relief distribution processes, quality, and accountability mechanism) of project team members in implementing a humanitarian response and recovery project within a pandemic scenario. The team members adhered to necessary safety guidelines on physical distancing and use of protection items (masks, gloves etc.) while ensuring completion of all project activities.
SMC formation and their benefit was a new experience to the NGO partner staff involved in the project who witnessed how there was active participation from community members, increased ownership and ensuring accountability throughout the project. This helped reduce additional burden like conflicts/arguments in case community members were not selected as beneficiaries since they did not meet the beneficiary selection criteria.

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