Bihar kosi flood report-Importance of Relief Chain Management in Disaster Response

Distribution Network Designs in Relief Chain Management: Government’s response to Kosi Floods 2008 A project report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Disaster Management Submitted by Animesh Prakash 2009DM007 Under the Guidance of Dr. Janki Andharia Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai February, 2011 CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the dissertation titled “Distribution Network Designs in Relief Chain Management: Government’s response to Kosi Floods 2008” is the record of the original work done by Mr. Animesh Prakash under my guidance. The Results of the research presented in the dissertation have not previously formed the basis of the award of any degree, diploma or certificate in this or any other university. Dr. Janki Andharia 28th February, 2011 Professor Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management Malati and Jal.A.D Naoroji Campus Tata Institute of Social Sciences Post Box No. 8313, Deonar Mumbai-400 088 India DECLARATION I, Animesh Prakash, hereby declare that this dissertation titled “Distribution Network Designs in Relief Chain Management: Government’s response to Kosi Floods 2008” is the outcome of my own study undertaken under the guidance of Dr. Janki Andharia, Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. It has not been previously formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma or certificate of this institute or any other institute or university. I have duly acknowledged all the sources used by me in the preparation of this dissertation. Animesh Prakash Date: 28th February, 2011 Place: Mumbai ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I owe my sincere thanks to Dr. Parama Bhattacharya, who, in the role of my faculty supervisor during my internship in Bihar, helped me to conceive the idea for this study. The thesis would never have evolved without the contribution of Dr. Janki Andharia. She has been extremely patient in going through my numerous drafts and bringing out even the minutest points of corrections. She, deserves a special mention for her constant support and advice during the entire period of research. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have completed the thesis under her supervision. I owe my sincere reverence and gratitude to Dr Andharia. Dr Samrat Sinha, kept motivating me throughout the process of this study. Faculty Members at Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management, Tata Institute of Social Sciences have constantly reviewed this study and provided their valuable inputs. I convey my sincere thanks to all of them. Thanks to Dr Anshu Sonak from University of Delhi, Ms. Shivangi from SEEDS, India and Mr. Naval Kishore Yadav, District Provident Fund Officer, Madhepura for their immense help with the data collection. Thanks to Mr. Surender Yadav from Rampur Lahi who took me to the most inaccessible places in the village for the data collection. Thanks to my colleagues, for enriching the quality of the study through debates and discussions. Special thanks to my school teachers, Mr. H.P. Bhatt, Late Mr. B.N. Khanna, Dr Sanjay Dubey, Mrs V Juyal and all others who have worked hard in shaping my personality. Their principles have always guided us to sail through the most difficult paths in life with courage and strength. Demise of Mr. Khanna in 2010 was a great loss for me. Undoubtedly, you were the best teacher I have ever seen and will ever see. I convey my reverence to my parents, for their unmatched efforts in bringing the best opportunities in my life. Thanks to my brothers for loving me always. Finally, thanks to Pakhi for being the most important source of inspiration in my life. For those who lost their lives in Kosi….. CONTENT 
Chapter One: Introduction………………………………………………………………12
Importance of relief chain management in disaster response…………….....................12
History and an Overview of floods in Bihar…………………………………………….15
The Kosi Blunder…………………………………………………………………………16
Vulnerability to floods and earthquakes……………………………………………......20
Objectives………………………………………………………………………………….21
Chapter Two: Methodology……………………………………………………………..22
Methodology………………………………………………………………………………22
Research Design…………………………………………………………………………..22
Sample……………………………………………………………………………………..24
Data Collection-Tools and Methods……………………………………………………..34
The Scope and Limitations of the study…………………………………………………37
Chapter Three: Review of Literature…………………………………………………....38
Comparision between humanitarian and commercial supply chain…………………...38
Distribution Network Designs…………………………………………………………....43
Role of distribution in a post disaster situation………………………………………....44
Factors affecting distribution network designs……………………………………..46
Distribution network designs in a supply chain………………………………………52
Chapter Four: The Impact of Floods in Rampur Lahi………………………………...64
Rampur Lahi: An island of deprivation………………………………………………...64
Floods in the Village: An overview……………………………………………………....71
Chapter Five:
Relief and Response experiences of Rampur Lahi: The Distribution Challenge….….73
Critical time period- Relief and Response………………………………………….…..73
Safety and Shelters during flooding……...………………………………………….…..76
As the Water Rose……………………………………………………………….……78
The Windfall- Event that shortened the critical time period…………………….…….79
Case Studies…………………………………………………………………………….....80
Evacuation of physically Disabled…………………………………………………….....80
Scenario after the critical time period……………………………………………...83
Relocated Survivors………………………………………………………………..……..83
Government’s Aid Arrives……………………………………………………….......85
The Singheshwer Mega Camp………………………………………………………..86
The MVC ad-hoc settlement……………………………………………………...….89
Chapter Six:
Government’s Relief and Response efforts: Analysing the Distribution Network…...96
State of disaster preparedness in Bihar…………………………………………………96
Government’s Strategy for relief and response after the floods………………………99
Chapter Seven: Towards an enhanced distribution framework……………………...120
Appendices…………………………………………………………………………………….130 References……………………………………………………………………………………..149 List of Figures 
Madhepura; Political Map………………………………………………………………….09
Madhepura, map showing inundation……………………………………………………..10
Madhepura, Road Network………………………………………………………………...11
Map showing date wise inundation in Bihar………………………………………………18
Sketch of Rampur Lahi, Stratification for Sampling……………………………………..28
Photo PRA being conducted in Ward no 01……………………………………………….29
Photo Group discussion being conducted at ward no 12………………………………….29
Manufacturer Storage with direct shipping……………………………………………….53
Manufacturer Storage with direct shipping and In Transit merge………………………55
Distributor Storage with package Carrier delivery……………………………………….56
Distributor storage with last mile delivery…………………………………………………58
Manufacturer/Distributor Storage with customer pick up……………………………….59
Distribution Network Design in Humaniatrian Logistics for local Donors……………...61
Outlay of Rampur Lahi………………………………………………………………….….71
Breach of Embankment………………………………………………………………….….79
Photo………………………………………………………………………………………….81
Photo…………………………………………………………………………………………81
Photo Children taking bath in the newly formed river-Badiyahi Dhar………………....84
Photo One of the boats used for evacuation and relief distribution in the village. ….....84
Outlay of MVC ad-hoc settlement………………………………………………………....90
Theoretical framework…………………………………………………………………….122
Superimposition of Theoretical framework on the real field situation…………………124
Approaches in Humanitarian Logistics…………………………………………………..125
Distribution Network Design in Humaniatrian Logistics for local Donors……………125
List of Tables 
Categorisation of Respondents…………………………………………………………………….33
Group discussions conducted during initial stage of data collection……………………………35
PRAs conducted during initial stage of data collection…………………………………………..36
Differences between Commercial and Humanitarian Supply Chain, Beamon, 2003………….40
Assets, Rampur Lahi……………………………………………………………………………….69
List of people who died in Singheshwar Mega Camp…………………………………………….
Organisations Intervening on and around MVC According to the Madhepura
Collectorate………………………………………………………………………………………….91
People from Rampur Lahi who died on MVC and whose family members were
contacted during data collection…………………………………………………………………..92
Relief Distribution Centre Shankarpur Block……………………………………………………100
Summary of Kosi floods evacuation relief and response in Madhepura
District (30/08/08-25/09/08)……………………………………………………………………….…102
Accessibility to the Relief Camps…………………………………………………………………...104
Evacuation by Army/NDRF /Para Military Forces……………………………………………….106
Pattern of Relief Distribution……………………………………………………………………….107
Summary of Findings and Supporting Evidences……………………………………………....…109
Pattern of evacuation………………………………………………………………………………..113
Number of Boats commissioned for Relief and Rescue………………………………………...…114
Pattern of Relief Distribution……………………………………………………………………….115
Organisations Intervening on and around MVC According to the Madhepura
Collectorate…………………………………………………………………………………………..118
Summary of findings……………………………………………………………………………...…119
NGOs and Flood Relief Intervention;District – MadhepuraDate of Reporting: 29-09-08……..126
Fig 01, Madhepura; Political Map Figure 02, Madhepura, map showing inundation. Figure 03, Madhepura, Road Network CHAPTER 01 INTRODUCTION Importance of relief chain management in disaster response An important characteristic of a powerful disaster is infrastructure collapse in the affected region which could severely impact the coping capacity of the affected community. Further it could make the function of Relief Chain Management extremely challenging in a disaster response. A prompt disaster response requires rapid deployment of aid and assistance to the affected area within a shortest possible time, while surpassing, immense dynamic hurdles posed by the collapsed infrastructure. The two components, of the relief chain on which its success relies are logistics and distribution. The challenges increase in severity as aid goes closer towards the real beneficiaries. In many post-disaster situations, aid could not reach the true beneficiaries. Logistics has always been an important factor in humanitarian aid operations, as logistics efforts account for 80% of disaster relief (Turnick, 2005). However in India, the significance of disaster logistics is not acknowledged. “The speed of the humanitarian aid after disaster depends on the ability of logisticians to procure, transport and receive supplies at the site of a humanitarian relief effort” (Thomas 2003, p. 04).Distribution of aid is a vital aspect of relief chain management. Disaster relief operations struggle with very special circumstances, as they often have to be carried out in an environment with destabilized infrastructure, (Cassidy, 2003; Long and Wood, 1995) ranging from a lack of electricity supplies to limited transport facilities. Furthermore, since the magnitude of most natural disasters are unpredictable, the demand for goods in these disasters is also unpredictable (Cassidy, 2003; Murray, 2005). Logisticians in this sector often have to work with fragmented technology and poorly defined manual processes. There are greater issues of safety as they may be operating in a politically volatile climate. Thus it is evident that humanitarian logistics is challenging as it has to be more flexible, and has to function under severe constraints. The biggest hurdle faced by the humanitarian logistics teams is the sheer complexity of the operating conditions within which they have to work in order to supply aid to those who have been affected by disasters. Transparency and accountability also has gained its importance with the donors, pledging millions in aid and goods, being more inquisitive regarding the relief distribution. Inventory management itself becomes an extremely challenging task in humanitarian logistics. According to Iain Logan, former Operations Manager at IFRC, the Balkan crisis unleashed an overwhelming response from the donor community to the point that IFRC decided not to unload planes carrying unsolicited goods. Richardson (1995) did a comprehensive study on challenges that come across a logistician’s way after a disaster. Ptashkin (2008) recognizes another challenge, i.e., to synchronize network plans, operations, technologies and data to accomplish two objectives: manage, monitor and deliver supplies and services to citizens, service providers and survivors, and enable adaptation and response to alerts and recovery from daily operating events and catastrophic incidents. Lack of co-ordination amongst various governmental and nongovernmental organization working in disaster response. This lack of coordination often leads to confusion at last mile (Murray, 2005). Managing logistics while responding to a disaster is extremely challenging particularly in cases of floods. Normally, floods of great magnitude cripple the existing infrastructure and people may be marooned in large numbers. Evacuation and relief distribution in cases of flood would urgently require all possible sources of conveyance, i.e. from boats to buses to helicopters. Therefore, logistics while responding to floods are expected to pose more varied challenges as compared to other disasters like earthquakes, cyclones etc. The importance of humanitarian logistics was recognized belatedly by several organizations, particularly after the Indian Ocean Tsunami. The Fritz Institute conducted a survey of the response to the Tsunami and found that humanitarian organizations were struck by the scarcity of trained and experienced logisticians in the field. The survey found that 88% of the aid agencies had to recall their most experienced logisticians from other organizations (such as Darfur) to be redeployed to staff the Tsunami relief efforts. In another study by Lee Wassenhove (2006), it was observed that exclusion of logistics in planning leads to fire fighting mentality which makes the logistics management during a disaster- a complex and challenging task. He states that, “It is only recently that, humanitarian organizations such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have tried to pin-point logistics and supply chain management as key to a relief operation. Other organizations in the sector are beginning to follow suit and raise the profile and professionalism of logisticians.” Other authors have also emphasized on the need of the logistics in disaster response. Logistics serves as a bridge between disaster preparedness and response, between procurement and distribution and between headquarters and the field. It also provides a rich source of data, since it is this department that handles the tracking of goods, which could be used to analyse post-event effectiveness (Thomas and Mizushima, 2005). William B. Cassidy (2010) highlights the impact of relief chain debacle in Haiti earthquake as well as Hurricane Katrina through experiences of Dr. Holguin Veras who has been working with Dominican and Haitian officials to determine ways of expediting relief efforts. Haiti is a classic example of disasters gone worse due to the chaotic relief chain management, similar to the Hurricane Katrina, although it was on a much larger scale. In India, the importance of relief chain management has been gradually realized more and more strongly after major disasters, like the Bhuj earthquake (2001), the Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004), the Kosi floods (2008) and the recent flash floods at Leh in August, 2010. However, disaster logistics remains in its nascent form in India. This study highlights the fact that a vast country like India should be far more prepared for humanitarian logistics to ensure effective deployment of aid and relief interventions. This study focuses on the Kosi floods of 2008, caused due to the breach of the eastern embankment near Kusaha village in Nepal (about 12 kms upstream of the Kosi barrage. A total population of 33,45,545 people living in 993 villages of 412 panchayats of 35 blocks of 5 districts were affected in the flood. About 3,40,742 houses were damaged and 7.12,140 animals were affected. A total of 239 humans and 1232 animals lives were lost. (Department of Planning and Development, Government of Bihar, 2009) However, the lives lost after the subsequent epidemics were exponentially high. Most of the people died due to lack of basic commodities which could not reach them on time due to several reasons. Logistics failure might be one them. This study explores how the government in Madhepura district organized its supply chain during the Kosi floods in 2008 and analyses its strengths and weaknesses. History and an overview of floods in Bihar A famous Albanian proverb says that, “fire, water and government, know nothing of mercy.” Floods in Bihar have placed 8.28 crore people from the state in a perfect position to accredit this saying as most of these floods can be seen rooted to be in human actions. Bihar is the twelfth largest state of India. It accommodates 8,28,78,796 people and has a population density of 880 people/ Sq Km. The state has an extensive river system. It is divided into two parts by the Ganges, which flows from west to east. The region lying in the north of Ganga is drained by Ghaghra, Gandak, Burhi Gandak and Mahananda. All these rivers are tributaries of the Ganges. The district lying to the north of Ganges forms North Bihar. It has been cursed by recurring floods and in particular Kosi has been the sorrow of this region. About 76% of the total population of the North Bihar is reported to be flood prone. Rashtriya Barh Aayog in its report in 1980 has assessed that 4.26 million hectares of area in Bihar is flood Prone. Only the state of Uttar Pradesh (7.336 million hectares) had larger flood prone area than Bihar. This implies that the number of persons hit by flood per unit area in Bihar is the largest as compared to other states in the country. Stating that the causes of floods in Bihar are purely natural would not be appropriate. Several scholars have fiercely debated over the issue, and many argue that floods in Bihar are human induced. During the promulgation of the First National Policy on Floods in 1954, only 25 lakh hectares of area in Bihar was flood prone. According to the reassessment of the Second Irrigation Commission of Bihar, in 1994, 68 lakh hectares were deemed to be flood prone. This itself suggest that there is something much more than nature itself which has resulted into increase in flood incidents in Bihar. Mishra (2010) identifies shortsightedness exhibited by the expert technical opinion, which, he believes, has taken diametrically opposite stances in pre an post independence period. “It opposed construction of embankments during the British rule, as the colonial rulers desisted spending on rehabilitation operations. While in independent India, the technical opinion under the political compulsion to do welfare of the people, has wholeheartedly supported construction of embankments and big dams. As a consequence, not only have flood control projects not performed according to the initial expectations but have in fact created a worse scenario”, (Mishra, 2010) The Kosi Blunder River Kosi is one of the most vibrant and notorious rivers of India. From its origin to its confluence with Ganga at Kursela, it travels 729 kms and drains a total area of 69,300 sq. km. The river is formed by the confluence of seven streams, namely, Indravati, Sun Kosi, Tam Kosi, Likhu Kosi, Dudh Kosi, Arun Kosi and Tamar Kosi. Besides this, major tributaries of Kosi, in India are Kamla, Baghmati, Budhi Gandak and Bhutahi Balan. Like a young child, who desists being disciplined, Kosi moves at her own will, explores new paths and behaves unpredictably. According to a popular hindu legend, it is believed that Kosi cannot be contained by bunds or embankments. The myth goes like this, “Once a demon got attracted by the beauty of Kosi and proposed to marry her. Kosi agreed on a condition that she would marry the demon if he could contain her between the Himalayas and her confluence with Ganga in a night’s time, and if the demon fails, he will have to pay with his life. The demon agreed and set on his work. Seeing the pace of his work, Kosi feared that he would accomplish the task before the set time. She sought help from her father, Lord Shiva, who took the garb of a cock and roosted before dawn could set in. The demon got nervous at this. Thinking he might not be able to finish the job in time and will have to pay with his life, he fled away from the place.” Historically, an embankment on Kosi was constructed in 12th century by the king Lakshman II. The embankment was named Bir Bandh and its remains can still be seen along the eastern bank of Kosi at Bhimnagar in Supaul district. During the British rule, particularly, in the 19th century, a possibility of construction of bunds and embankments on Kosi as flood prevention strategy was extensively reviewed. However, experts opinion oscillated between two groups. One group considered construction of embankments and bunds as inevitable flood control measure. The other group believed that taming the Kosi river through structural measures would accelerate floodings in this region. By the end of the 19th century, signing of Sugali pact between India and Nepal, led to several studies, to explore the possibilities to embank the river Kosi. A futile attempt was made to construct marginal embankment along its course. This could not be made due to heavy rains (Choudhary, 1960). W.A. Inglis toured the Kosi region in India and Nepal in 1893 and suggested against interference with the natural flow of the river. Shillingford in 1895 also questioned the practicality of taming the river’s course. He writes that, “the Kosi after reaching its westernmost limit will go back near easternmost of its abounded channels and then begin the work of moving westwards all over again” (Mishra 2010 quoting Shllingford date unavailable). Shillingford was criticized by Charles Elliot (1895) who opined otherwise. He states that, “there seems to be no evidence adduced to show that the river has reached its westernmost position or to show that if it has, it will return violently from a direct southern to an extreme eastern course, instead of doing so gradually” (Elliot, 1895). On Feb 24th, 1897, on the Calcutta flood conference, means were suggested to build short length embankments to prevent floods in isolated regions. This prompted local authorities, and indigo planters to construct several such embankments. Its repercussions were severe (O’Malley, 1911). even after such severe follies, authorities were unclear about a solution to this recurring problem. Captain F.C. Hirst in 1908, strongly held the opinion that embanking rivers was dangerous as was the case with Hwang Ho river in China. He argued that through structural measures, a river can be forced to follow a particular path. However, containing and taming rivers flow through such human actions are against nature. He states that, “in the nature’s face, it’s an insult, which is not yet known to leave unavenged (Hirst, 1908) W.A. Inglis, in 1909, strongly refuted Hirst. He was of the opinion that embankments designed with discretion and proper understanding of the case are of good service (Inglis, 1909). Amidst the debate over merits and demerits of these structural measures, goovernment’s dilemma persisted and they strived hard to arrive at a solution to the flood problems in Bihar. In relation to this, Patna Flood Conference was held in 1937. In the conference, governor Hallet; G.A.Hall and Dr. Rajendra Prasad all in one voice spoke against the construction of embankments on rivers (Proceedings of Patna Flood Conference, 1938, Pg 2, 8, 9 and 11). Of all the embankments, Rajendra Prasad held responsible, the railway embankments and district board roads, for floods (Proceedings of Patna Flood Conference, 1938, Pg 8, 9). At the Patna Flood Conference first attempt to dam the Kosi in Nepal was given by Jimut Bahan Sen. He suggested it as the only measure to check the Kosi (Proceedings of Patna Flood Conference, 1938, Pg 29). In 1942, Rai Bahadur PC Ghosh studied rivers of North Bihar. He along with WL Murrel, the then superintending engineer were of the opinion that improper maintenance of Tiljuga Bandh (dam) would result in embankment collapse, thereby, drowning thousands of people in Darbhanga district itself (Bahadur and Ghosh, 1942, printed 1949). Figure 04, Map showing date wise inundation in Bihar Suggestions to embank Kosi started coming in more frequently after 1940s. the Kosi Plan of 1945 recommended construction of marginal embankments built 16 kms apart from Nepal foothills to Ganges (Mishra 2010 quoted from Post War Plan of Bihar, 1945). Construction of 229 mts high dam in Barhkshetra was suggested in 1947. However, the project got repeatedly postponed until it was dropped in 1951 on recommendation of Majumdar committee (Mullick, Date not available). The committee sighted the reason that the benefits of flood control would come only in the later stages of the project. The committee came up with an alternative plan called the Belkha Reservoir Scheme (Mullick, Date not available). Under this scheme, 19.2 Km long, 20mt high earthen dam was to be constructed, 14.4 kms downstream of Belka hills. In 1953, another committee of experts was constituted after Nehru’s aerial survey of North Bihar on October 31st and November 1st. The committee proposed construction of 1150 mts long barrage, 5 kms upstream of Hanuman Nagar town. The embankment on kosi was approved in December 1953. The Barrage was built at Bhimnagar between 1959 and 1963, and was inaugurated in 1963-64. An 1149 mt long barrage was constructed along with 46 gates. Two canals were built on either side of the barrage. These canals are Eastern and western Kosi canals. However, this has not brought any respite from the vagaries of Kosi. Rather, it has proved to be a nightmare in flood management. In 1954, Bihar had 160 kms length of embankment, which rose to 3465kms by 1992 (Various annual reports of the Department of Water Resources, Government of Bihar). The Flood prone region in 1954 was 25 lakh hectares which rose to 68 lakh hectares in 1994. Vulnerability to Floods and Earthquakes Structural interventions for flood control on Kosi are also challenged by numerous geographical complexities. The river has one of the world’s largest river built alluvial fan. The Kosi mega fan is 180km long and 150km wide. It cuts across Himalayas and Shiwalik ranges carrying huge quantities of sediments. The upper catchment of Kosi experiences heavy soil erosion due to very high rainfall in these areas (mean 1451.8 mm/yr) the silt load in kosi is largest in the rivers of Indian subcontinent. It averages 80 million tones/year (Aggarwal and Bhoj, 1992). After the river reaches the North Bihar plain, the silt load is deposited leading to aggradation of the river bed. This offers resistance to the flow of water thereby forcing the river to change its course. Precisely, due to this reason containing the river within embankments from both side could be a disastrous step in the long term. The silt would be deposited within the embankment itself and gradually the river bed would rise to such a level that the purpose of constructing embankments would have no meaning. Apart from this shifting of the river is also a natural evolution process. It can be induced by several factors like earthquakes, landslides and neotectonic activities (Aggarwal and Bhoj, 1992). The Kosi flood plains are constantly being influenced by the compressive tectonic regime resulting from the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates. Besides the presence of various active subsurface structures like East Patna fault, Begusarai fault, Monghyr-Saharsa ridge, Bhawanipur fault, Malda-Kisahnganj fault, Madhubani Graben with sediment thickness of about 6 km and the shallow Purnea Depression underneath the vicinity of Kosi and North Bihar flood plains may result in uplift or subsidence of the surface, causing changes in the river course (Aggarwal and Bhoj, 1992). The flood management on Kosi is therefore far more challenging. The loopholes in Kosi flood management became more and more evident with time. Bihar experienced several devastating floods, even after the construction of the barrage and the embankments. In most of the cases, and particularly in the recent floods of 2008, the reason for flooding was breach of the embankment itself. Of the numerous floods that struck Bihar after 1950, some of the most destructive were the floods of 1953, 1954, 1963, 1971, 1984, 1987, 1991,1995, 2004 and the most recent flood of 2008. The highest flood recorded in the recent history of the river Kosi is reported to be 850,000 cusec (as against the average discharge of 55,000 cusec) on 24th August 1954 (Reddy et. Al, 2008). In 2008, due to the breach of embankment at Kusaha, the discharge of water rose to 1.66 lakh cusec as against 25,744 cusec in the usual course. Kosi started flowing on a new course, where at places it was 15- 20kms wide. Length of the Kosi, flowing north to south on this new course, was 150kms. (Department of Planning and Development, Government of Bihar, 2009) Objectives: Kosi floods saw excessive loss of life and damage to property. The role of disaster logistics and distribution networks has not been explored in the context of these floods. The focus of this study is to explore government’s management of relief logistics and how it can be improved. The specific objectives of this study are:- 
To identify the district government’s mechanisms of managing logistics while responding to Kosi floods 2008.
To evaluate the efficiency of these mechanisms with respect to its outreach to flood affected people.
To review and analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the adopted distribution network design for relief management with reference to strategic locations of the relief camps, during the first month of the kosi floods in 2008.
To suggest ways of improving disaster logistics at district level in Bihar.
The research will primarily examine government’s response during the first month of the Kosi floods in terms of logistics. It will also examine if the government had a plan for the flood response or whether the response was mainly adhoc. The study would also try to explore, if logistics was given enough priority or significance during the flood response. For this people from government responsible for managing logistics during Kosi floods would be identified. Process of managing logistics and relief distribution by these logistics service providers would be captured and analysed. The study would look into the difficulties faced by these logistics service providers. It will also examine how evacuation and relief distribution was managed, how many people were reached by the responders for evacuation and how many people could not be reached. The study will look into the relief provisions made by the government for those who were evacuated by their aid as well as those who could not be evacuated. CHAPTER 02 METHODOLOGY Methodology This is an exploratory study that it aims to explore the specific distribution strategies in releif and its effectiveness for people affected by floods. The broad methodology of the research is qualitative. The study draws significant qualitative data from the people affected by the floods and also relies on some secondary sources for data collection. It examines the response, perspectives and insights of the logistics service providers, the agencies of disaster management in India and Bihar, the academicians and practioners engaged in disaster response and the flood affected people in Bihar. In order to analyse the consequences of the adopted strategies in distribution of relief, during the Kosi floods response, this study compares the different situations in which the affected people found themselves at the time of the floods. Since very little is known about distribution network designs in humanitarian logistics, an exploratory, qualitative method is used. The research design: The study examines relief distribution from various perspectives. First, the perspective of the logistics service providers from the state government was considered to understand the situations and circumstances which determined the adoption of specific strategies. What consequences these strategies have? They will be evaluated by examining the consequences on people placed in different situations. Whether these strategies were capable or not capable of directly/indirectly benefitting the affected people would be examined. The three different sets of respondents, for the study were; (a) the officials from various governmental departments who were engaged in evacuation, relief distribution and other activities of relief chain management, during the flood response, (b) the flood affected people who were benefitted by the relief chain management strategies adopted by the authorities. (c) the flood affected people, to whom the benefits of these strategies could not reach, thereby, influencing them adversely. Questions addressed under each objective are as follows:- 
To evaluate the efficiency of these mechanisms with respect to its outreach to flood affected people.
For this objective, field data collection was guided by following questions:-
Was logistics given enough priority or significance during the flood response? If not:-
What difficulties were faced by the responders due to this?
How did that affect the victims of the flood?
How many people could be reached by these responders for evacuation?
How many people could not be reached by the government responders for evacuation?
Where were the people evacuated through government’s aid taken?
Interviews were conducted with villagers who were either reached by the Government logistics service providers (LSPs) or were not reached by them. Further, interviews were conducted with LSPs who worked during the first month of the floods. 
To review and analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the adopted distribution network design for relief management with reference to strategic locations of the relief camps, during the first month of the Kosi floods in 2008.
All the research questions listed above (under subsection 1) helped in analysis of the strategies with which the LSPs handled the distribution of the relief goods at various places in Madhepura. The situation that existed during the Kosi response were then reviewed and evaluated with reference to the existing distribution network designs.
To suggest ways of improving disaster logistics at district level in Bihar.
After the detailed analysis of the data collected, the study identifies scope of improvement and offers practical suggestions that could be implemented at the district level in disaster management.
Sample:- Managing Humanitarian logistics while responding to a disaster like floods is extremely challenging. Floods of great magnitude cripple the existing infrastructure and people are marooned in large numbers. Evacuation and relief distribution would urgently require all possible sources of conveyance, i.e. from boats to buses to helicopters. Therefore, logistics while responding to floods are expected to pose more varied challenges as compared to other disasters like earthquakes, cyclones etc. Therefore, floods were preferred over other disasters, for the purpose of this study. The specific reasons for selecting Kosi floods as the case were: 
In April, 2009 it had been only 18 months since Kosi floods had swept Bihar. Its devastation was still visible and people could easily recollect the experiences of the disaster. Moreover, several families still living in ad hoc settlement established during the flood. Hence , research expected to retrieve the data with much accuracy as the event was still fresh in their memories.
The Kosi river in 2008 flooded those regions mostly which had not seen major floods in past several years. Most of the people (from all generations) had never experienced floods in their lives. Even the administration was caught unawares. Therefore, researcher expected to come across various complexities and learnings which would be rather unique and enriching.
In Madhepura district, the severely affected blocks were Madhepura, Singheshwar, Shankarpur, Murliganj, Kumarkhand, Udakishunganj, Aalamnagar, Bihariganj, Chausa, Puraini and Gwalpada. The worst affected village during the floods, in terms of loss of life and damage to property was Jorganwa in Murliganj block. At the same time there were villages like Rampur Lahi which were placed in extreme complex situations. During floods Shankarpur block headquarter was unreachable due to inundation and destruction of REO road at Maujma. It was proposed to immediately reconstruct Baily Bridge for effective relief distribution. During that period the region was accessible only through boats. Moreover, in Rampur Lahi a very large number of people were trapped between two rivers, one of which was created only in the floods. Thus, the situation at Rampur Lahi required more attention towards effective logistics for evacuation and relief distribution. Of all the affected areas, Rampur Lahi of Shankarpur block in Madhepura district in Bihar was selected as the study area. People from Rampur Lahi, either stayed in Singheshwar Mega Camp or in the ad-hoc settlement, established at the MVC embankment. Only those people who stayed in either of the camps were selected as respondents for this study. .Although, Rampur Lahi was one of the badly affected regions, it was not the worst affected area in the district. The worst affected Blocks were Murliganj, Kumarkhand, Udakishanganj etc. Jorganwa village in Murliganj was, Particularly, the most affected village. However, inspite of this Rampur Lahi of Shankarpur block was preferred over Jorganwa panchayat due to the following reasons :- 
I had an opportunity, on an earlier occasion to work for flood rehabilitation for one month. This made me well acquainted with the topography and social structure of the village. I had established good relations and contacts during his stay in the village. In the limited time and budget it would have been impractical for me to collect a comprehensive set of data from Jorganwa.
As stated earlier, due to destruction of REO road at Maujma and creation of a new river at Rampur Lahi during the flood, such situations were created that provided a good base for a study pertaining to disaster and logistics.
Since, I belong to Bihar; I had an advantage of understanding the vernacular languages, culture, customs and practices of the region. This became an important point of consideration for giving preference to Kosi floods over other recent floods in other parts of the country.
MVC camp and the Singheshwar Mega Camp were selected for the case study because people of Rampur Lahi, who took refuge in camps, stayed in either of the two camps. After selecting the study area, next task involved selection respondents from Humanitarian logisticians who were involved in Kosi disaster response. At first it was proposed to select the respondent both from NGOs and Governmental organization. After the initial study various NGOs which worked at Rampur Lahi were selected. However, it was later discovered that these NGOs worked at different timeframes for brief periods and would have possibly faced different challenges altogether because the dynamic nature of the then situation. On the other hand, government worked right from the beginning with various departments and their presence was expected uniformly which can be stretched on a temporal platform. Hence the study focuses only on governmental departments. In order to get proper representation from various regions within the village, and in order to equally capture different situations that emerged within the village, it was stratified on the following basis:- 
On the basis of administrative boundaries. (This classification helped in wardwise representation)
On the basis of severity of affected areas. This was further sub classified into:-
Area with access to safe route
Area with limited access to safe route but having accessibility
Area with no access to safe route neither safe location.
This classification and subclassifications helped in considering the severity of the situation in relation to the different situations in which the people were placed in.
On the basis of this the village, Rampur Lahi was divided into the following categories (see figure 05):- 
Ward no 01 and 02 - Least affected areas.
Ward no 03, 04, 05 and 06 – Moderately affected areas with access to safe route. ( exception – some parts of ward no 05 and 06 had limited access to safer route) Shown with red boundary
Ward no 07, 08 and 09 – Moderately affected areas with limited access to safe route but with access to safe location. Shown with blue boundary
Ward no10, 11 and 12- severely affected areas with no access to either safe route or safe location. Shown with yellow boundary
Fig 05 Sketch of Rampur Lahi, Stratification for Sampling Figure 06 PRA being conducted in Ward no 01.Source: SEEDS India; 2010, Photograph by Animesh Prakash Figure 07 Group discussion being conducted at ward no 12.Source: SEEDS India; 2010, Photograph by Ankit Jaiswal On the basis of this stratification:- Ward no 01 and 02 were excluded from the sample as relatively these were the least affected regions with only knee deep inundation. Most sof the people were not compelled to evacuate by the forces of water. Thus, I could arrive at the final region from where the respondents were interviewed. This is defined below:- 
Ward No. 03, 04, 05 and 06
Most of the areas in these wards lay between the MVC canal and the Bariyahi Dhar. Which is the new river, that was created in the floods. This river intersects the village into approximately two equal halves and it has a north south gradient. This region had three strongly built pukka houses which were used as a safer temporary shelter. These houses were
Rajendra Yadav’s house
Panchayat Bhawan
Trisum Bhawan
MVC embankment which became the site for large ad hoc settlement during the flood is also next to this region. 
Ward No 07, 08 and 09.
As a new river suddenly swelled, intersecting the village into two halves, people of this region found themselves trapped between two rivers – Bariyahi Dhar and the Jogiya Chahi river. For them it was difficult to escape but most of them had access to safe place i.e., Chhoti Nahar (small canal embankment) which passes through this region. 
Ward No.10, 11 and 12
This was a severely affected region with neither the safe route nor the safer location. People were trapped between two rivers and chhoti nahar embankment was at some distance. People of mahariji tola, ward no 12 were so badly trapped that they had to precariously cross two mighty rivers in order to reach a safer location. People had no alternative, but to build long bamboo platforms in order to escape drowning. Respondents were selected from this area and were classified into the following category:- 
Respondents who stayed in Singheshwar Mega Camp
1-a) Respondents who lost atleast one family member during the flood 1-b) Respondents who did not experience any death in family during the flood 
Respondents who stayed in MVC ad hoc settlement.
2-a) Respondents who lost atleast one family member during the flood 2-b) Respondents who did not experience any death in family during the flood Sample Size The total population of Rampur Lahi village is 10,500 people. During initial visit group discussions were conducted. Villagers reported that 20 people amongst those who lived in MVC camp died within three months of the flood. Government’s record were silent on this aspect as data was not maintained. Singheshwar Mega Camp incharge stated that it is extremely difficult to maintain such records at this highly crowded ad hoc settlement where every day hundreds of people came in and left and there was no systematic registration mechanism. After the pilot study, 20 no. of deaths from Rampur lahi was considered as the base on which sample was developed. A sample size of 14 respondents from Rampur Lahi was proposed. Out of these the 14, 07 respondent should be from MVC camp and the rest from the Singheshwar Mega Camp. Atleast 40% of 20 deaths were targeted to be covered from each camp. The other three respondents were selected from the families who have not experienced any death. However, while interviewing the people from Singheshwar Mega Camp it was realized that there has been only a one death from the camp, hence other 06 respondents included those respondents who have not experienced any deaths in the family during the flood. Although 50% of the total deaths were covered through the interview of the relatives of the victims, only 5 of them i.e., 25% were included in the final sample as it was decided that from a sample size of 07 from each camp not more than 04 should be from those who have not experienced deaths in a family. Data started showing saturation after 4th and 5th interview in Singheshwar mega camp. In case of MVC camp data started showing saturation after 6th and 7th interview. Considering the vast area to be covered in the village with physical infrastructure collapse in floods and with motorcycle being the only mode of transport( which was difficult to arrange) mobility was difficult. The proposed and the final sample is listed below:- Table 01 Categorisation of RespondentRegionSample Category1-a1-b2-a2-bProposed SampleActual SampleProposed SampleActual SampleProposed SampleActual SampleProposed SampleActual SampleWard No. 03,04.05 and 0601-01-01-0102Ward No. 07, 08, and 0901-01-020301-Ward No.10, 11 and 120201010601010101Total (Actual Sample)01+ 06= 0704+03=07 1-a - Respondents who have experienced death in family during the flood while staying in the Singheshwar mega camp. 1-b -Respondents who have not experienced death in family during the flood while staying in the Singheshwar mega camp. 2-a- Respondents who have experienced death in family during the flood while staying in the MVC camp. 2-b- Respondents who have not experienced death in family during the flood while staying in the MVC camp Please note that:- 
In sample category 1-a and 1b all the actual sample were collected from the third region only. This is because of ward no.12, only people living in ward no Maharaji Tola were evacuated with government’s aid and were taken to Singheshwar Mega Camp.
From sample category 1-a , actual sample was only 01 as against the intended 04. This is because there was only one death in singheshwar mega camp from the village.
Selection of Respondents As I was unsure of how respondents in the category 1-a and 2-a would be distributed in the village and as the total number of people in this category was not very large, I have adopted a snowball sampling method for data collection. In order to avoid collecting data from a single concentrated region, the village was divided into three zones (as mentioned earlier). Snowball sampling method was adopted in each of these regions. Address of the first respondent was obtained from Mr.Nawal Kishore Yadav who was incharge of the Singheshwar mega camp. Subsequently, respondents were reached with the reference of the previous respondent interviewed. Data Collection – Tools and Methods The data collection period were divided into two stages, i.e., 
Initial stage of data collection and
Final stage of data collection.
The initial stage of data collection also being the first stage of exploration, I preferred to have a wide view of the subject without any prior assumptions. At this stage I collected all the information that might have some connection with the subject of the study and maintained detailed notes. For eg, risk perception of the people during the time time of flood, safe routes in the villages, class segregation in the village based on social and economic structure, indigenous knowledge of people etc. The following tools of data collection were used:- 
Transect walk and observation
Group discussions
PRA
Unstructured Interviews
During my first four visits to the village, all the places in the village were covered. Simultaneously, I also met with the villagers and explained my purpose of visit. These conversations were crucial as it allowed me to build rapport with the people. This has greatly helped me later too during subsequent data collection. People were requested to congregate at Mukhiya’s place in ward no 01 on the 5th visit. Social Mapping was done with them. Safe routes and locations were identified during this process. It was followed by group discussions using a discussion guide on the floods. People who represented different classes, communities and wards participated equally throughout the process. Table 02 Group discussions conducted during initial stage of data collection.SNCommunity/Group of peopleWardsPlace of FGD01People of Rampur LahiAll WardsWard no 0102People with physical and mental handicapWard no 05 & 09Ward no 05 & 0903Women and old peopleAll WardsWard no 0104People who lived at SMC during floodWard no 12 (Maharaji Tola)Ward no 12 (Maharaji Tola)05People who experienced death of a family member while living at MVCAll WardsWard no 05, 06 and 08.06Sardar families living on chhoti nehar embankment since floodsWard no 12Ad-hoc settlement on the chhoti nehar embankment07Mushar and sardar communityAll wards except 01 & 02Ward no 05, 06, 09 and 1208Muslim CommunityWard no 12 Ward no 12 (Maharaji Tola)09Jha and YadavAll wardsWard no 05, 06,08, 09 and 12 In subsequent visits, group discussions were conducted in each tola of each ward of the village with an exception of Maharaji Tola of ward no 12. As it was inaccessible due to two rivers on the way with broken bamboo bridges on them ,this was not even safe for a motorcycle to cross. The region was visited after two months when the water in the rivers receded and crossing them through motorcycles became possible. Areas, which were inaccessible during earlier visits were covered in these visits. During these visits, three more PRAs in ward no 09, ward no. 03 and ward no 05 were conducted to verify the data that were collected on the 5th visit at the mukhiya’s place. Table 3 PRAs conducted during initial stage of data collection.S.NPlace of main activitiesTarget area01 Ward No. 01Rampur Lahi02Ward No. 02Ward No. 0203Ward No. 03Ward No. 0304Ward No. 05Ward No. 0505Ward No.09Ward No. 08,0906Ward No.12Ward No. 12 Plans for the data collection for the final stage were made after reviewing the of data collected during the first stage. Subsequently, tools for final stage of data collection were designed. In the final stage of data collection, both primary and secondary sources of data were collected. Main stool of data collection was personal interviews. These interviews were both structured and unstructured. Unstructured interviews were conducted with journalists and TV correspondents, bearing in mind that they had extensively covered Kosi Floods and Structured interviews might just prevent or restrict them to share certain information of substance. Other governmental officials were interviewed through structured interview schedule at their offices. Respondents from villages were also interviewed. Questions were mostly open ended. Each person was individually interviewed at home at a time convenient to his/ her schedule. Interviews generally lasted from 30 to 90 minutes. All of these questions were easily understood by the people. However, some questions like question no 08 in set of questions intended for respondents from singheshwar mega camp needed additional explanation. These questions were asked either in hindi or in the local language. Knowledge of the local language added to the advantage of the researcher in conveying and receiving correct messages. Secondary Sources of data were mainly gathered from the district information officer at the Madhepura Collectorate. He also gave references of websites from where related information could be retrieved. The Scope and Limitations of the Study:- The study focuses only on floods. Although during other natural disasters like earthquake and landslide , similar problems might be faced, it is outside the scope of the study. It can be a prospective research area to test the findings of this study in context of other disaster. Only governmental supply chain and governmental officials of various departments taking up the role of humanitarian logisticians are considered. Non Governmental Organizations and its logistics fall outside the scope of the study primarily because different NGOs kept coming in the region at different time and went out after the intended intervention during their brief stay. Due to the extremely dynamic situation after the floods and magnitude of the challenge the time of the study is limited to the first three months after the floods. CHAPTER 3 REVIEW OF LITERATURE Comparison between Humanitarian and Commercial Supply Chain In last few decades, level of comfort has tremendously increased atleast in some fragments of the settlements, particularly the urban settlements. Our daily Ration, cooked and ready to eat food, clothes, medicines, luxury items like jewelry, car, T.V., refrigerator, you name them and you will find them in a store near you, in most of the cases, at walking distance. If you don’t feel like walking upto the store, just make a phone call and the desired product will be delivered at your place within no time. Captions like, ‘delivery in 30 minutes or free’ must have caught your attention. All these comforts which we experience today is result of years of research and innovations that has gone into commercial supply chain. However, many a times certain adverse conditions significantly reduce the outreach of an existing supply chain. This adversities can arise from situations like man made or natural disasters or a massive accident blocking communication routes, or political decisions like impositions of sanctions etc. Under such a situation where the reach of the existing commercial supply chains is limited to such an extent that life and well being of people is threatened, role of Humanitarian Supply Chain becomes significant. In a massive flood, a man is marooned on a tree for several days and an agency brings the commodities essential for his survival at that place itself. But just like him, there are several thousands of people stranded at various places with absolute needs for basic commodities. Non fulfillment of these requirement would make it difficult for them to survive. This gives an idea about how important could be the operations of Humanitarian supply chain. It also explains the basic differences between a commercial and a humanitarian supply chain. Where commercial supply chain generally operates under normal conditions, the humanitarian supply chain faces challenging conditions like collapsed infrastructure, lack of information etc. Inspite of this, unlike its commercial counterpart, Humanitarian logistics is starved of research studies. “The field of humanitarian logistics is relatively new with significant research only having begun to be undertaken within the last five years.” (Maspero and Ittman, 2008). Beamon (2003) differentiated commercial supply chain and humanitarian relief chain on the basis of 07 criteria, i.e., Demand pattern, lead time, Distribution network configuration, inventory control, information system, strategic goals and performance measurement system. Definitions of the factors listed by Beamon in the table 04 is listed below:- Demand Pattern is the pattern of a particular good or service that a consumer/ group of consumer want at a given time. Lead Time is the amount of time between the placing of an order and the receipt of the goods ordered. Distribution Network is the network of intermediaries between the producer of goods and or services and the final user. Inventory control is the supervision of supply and storage and accessibility of items in order to insure an adequate supply and storage and accessibility of items in order to ensure an adequate supply without excessive oversupply. Information System is a system consisting of network of all communication channels used within an organisation. Strategic Goal is the overall goal of an organisation in terms of its market position in the medium or the long term. Performance measurement system is a set of a measureable criteria and methodology to enable performance to be measured objectively. Table 02, Difference between Commercial and Humanitarian Supply Chain (Beamon, 2004, quoted from Maspero and Ittman, 2008) Table 4 Differences between Commercial and Humanitarian Supply Chain, Beamon, 2003 In the above table Beamon has highlighted crucial differences between commercial and the humanitarian supply chain. A careful examination of the table suggests that basic differences between the two primarily exist because they operate under different conditions and in different circumstances. The major and perhaps the most important difference between Humanitarian relief chain and commercial supply chain is the different strategic goals they desire to achieve. A commercial supply chain aims at providing high quality products at low cost to maximize profitability and achieve higher customer satisfaction. However, humanitarian relief chain aims at minimizing loss of life and alleviating sufferings (Thomas, 2003). In order to achieve, this strategic goal, a relief chain has to respond in approximately zero lead time. As lead time increases, so the chances of deaths and sufferings also increase. Hence, it is required to respond to the most urgent demands of the affected community within no time. Unlike commercial supply chain, humanitarian relief chain which normally operates in response to a crisis situation or a disaster does not have the advantage of proper demand predictability. This is because demand is generated from sudden random events which themselves are unpredictable in terms of timing, location, type and size. Demand requirement can be estimated only on the basis rapid damage assessments or needs analysis. There is every possibility that outcomes of these rapid assessments would give highly inflated or deflated figures or would altogether omit some important immediate demands of the affected community. As a result, misleading demand pattern could lead to inappropriate intervention. A well defined information flow, as in commercial supply chain, can possibly guide the respondents to establish correct demand pattern. However, establishment of proper information system is itself jeopardized in a post disaster situation, due to massive destruction of the community infrastructure. All these factors make timely dissemination of relief in the affected community, an extremely difficult task. Due to lack of information flow, proper demand pattern is not established. As a result, delivering appropriate aid in close to zero lead time becomes extremely difficult. An alternative solution to this problem can be rooted to better preparedness. Establishing large inventories as preparedness towards disaster response might lead to timely and improved aid delivery. Although the strategy involves high costs, considering the stakes involved, the expenses may be considered necessary. Determining inventory levels based on the demand, demand locations and lead times are some of the problems that are expected to emerge while planning for proper disaster preparedness. Beamon and Balcik (2008) have made comparison between For-profit supply chain and humanitarian relief chain They have stated broad differences between the two supply chains on the basis of strategic goals, demand characteristics and customer characteristics. Strategic Goals:- As put in by Ballon (2004, p 35-37), three prime objectives for firm’s logistics strategy are: (a) Cost reduction, (b) Capital reduction and (c) Service improvement. Based on this, the strategic objective of a commercial supply chain system is producing profit and high quality goods or services corresponding to customer goals or values. The Humanitarian relief chain operates with ultimate goal of saving lives and reducing human sufferings. NGOs, however, have two major bottom lines: Mission effectiveness and financial sustainability (Moore, 2000, Lindenberg and Bryant, 2001). Although, cost is common consideration in both the supply chains, it is slightly lower on a priority in a relief chain when compared to time. Van Wassenhove (2006) points out, “the pressure of time in the relief chain is not a question of money but a difference between life and death.” Demand Characteristics: Demand in a commercial chain are products and services. In a relief chain demands are supplies (aid) and people (Beamon, 2003). More prominent variations are seen in demand patterns. Commercial chain has a predictable and relatively stable demand pattern, whereas, demand pattern in relief chain is highly unpredictable. This is because, demand is generated suddenly due to random events like a disaster. Information regarding location, type or size of disaster or demand requirements and its volume are not known very clearly. Beamon and Balcik (2008), have also described the unique characteristic of the order fulfillment process for the relief chain responding to quick onset emergency. Following factors make process different than that in a commercial chain:- Zero Lead Time: Disaster strikes usually without warnings and creates sudden demands. The lead time, ie, the time between the moment disaster strikes and the time supplies reaches should be close to zero. Transportation unreliabity: Uncertainity in demand location, damages incurred to infrastructure and various other dynamic factors that emerges after a disaster makes it to establish reliable transportation routes for relief distribution. Pricing: As disaster creates abnormal demands, suppliers are lured to raise their prices in response. For most non commodity commercial industries pricing is relatively static over reasonable time horizon (Beamon, Balcik, 2008). Customer Characteristics:- There are significant differences between commercial chain customers and aid recipients. “Unlike the commercial chain, the aid recipient does not have the luxury of market choice for supply (relief supplies). Thus, the aid recipient operates in an unregulated monopoly, where the stakes associated with supplies are often life or death (Beamon, Balcik, 2008). Another significant problem in the field of humanitarian relief chain is determining a well defined distribution network system. As a disaster creates sudden and unpredictable conditions and timely information on the location, type and size of events, state of existing infrastructure are not known, the task of distribution of aid is perhaps the most difficult one in a humanitarian relief chain. Distribution Network Designs From the discussions over differences between the two supply chains in the previous section, some of the factors that emerged time and again, indicated, how challenging could be the task of establishing a distribution network in a humanitarian supply chain. Maspero and Ittmann have quoted Beamon in their paper, ‘The rise of humanitarian Logistics,’ that ‘ Distribution network configuration in a relief chain is challenging due to the nature of the unknowns (Locations, type and size of events, politics and culture) and last mile considerations.’ The importance of a proper distribution network in relief chain was emphasized by Balcik and Beamon’s statement that, ‘The stakes associated with relief supplies are often life or death.’ Inspite of this there are very few studies published in the field of distribution network in humanitarian relief chain. Anna Nagurney and Qiang Patrick Qiang in their book, “Fragile Networks: Identifying vulnerabilities and synergies in an uncertain world” describes methodological approaches that both capture and measure network vulnerabilities and performance. This book formalizes concept of network robustness, an important aspect associated with network vulnerabilities. Anna Naguerney et al, in their paper titled supply chain network models for humanitarian logistics: Identifying synergies and vulnerabilities,’ have spoken about the benefits of integration of multiple supply chains for two organisations. Ali Ekici et al, in their paper, ‘Modeling influenza pandemic and strategies for food distribution,’ attempts to comprehend, geographically, the spread of diseases and construct a food distribution network. Each of these papers have made a significant contribution in the field of network in supply chain. However, unlike the commercial supply chain, Humanitarian relief chain still lack studies that directly deals with distribution network models. The focus of this research is to analyse the existing Distribution network models in a commercial supply chain and to construct a distribution network model for the relief chain by adapting the merits of commercial chain that can be workable in uncertain conditions under which a relief chain operates. Role of distribution in a post disaster situation The word ‘Distribution’ in a humanitarian supply chain, ideally refers to the steps taken to move and store relief goods and services from a donor’s end to the beneficiaries end. Section 2 (d) of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 defines disaster as a “catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence in any area arising from natural or man made causes, or by accident or negligence which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to, and destruction of property, or damage to, or degradation of environment, and is of such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area.” Going by this definition of a disaster, it is apparently clear that the community hit by the disaster is incapable of coping up with its impact. In order to mitigate its impact, the community largely relies on help from external agencies. Furthermore, the definition also highlights that a disaster leads to loss of life and property. Hence, the significance of distribution of relief goods and services can be understood by the fact that: 
The local community hit by a disaster requires help from external agencies to cope up with its impact.
Proper and timely distribution of relief goods and services can prevent further loss of lives and property and can bring respite to the affected community.
Examples from the recent disasters in India clearly indicate the significance of a proper relief distribution in a post disaster situation. In Kosi floods of 2008, approximately 1300 people from Maharaji tola in Rampur Lahi, were trapped between two flooding rivers. With no safe location to hide, they prepared several bamboo platforms and stayed on it for as long as 90 days. They had no access to safe drinking water, food, sanitation or medical facilities. By the first week, the little food stock they had (maize, sattu, choora etc) had been consumed. Majority of them were sick and needed medical attention. Government’s aid arrived after 10 days. People were given the much needed bottled water, food packages and medicines. Most of them (800 people) were eventually evacuated in a phased manner. In another example from cloudburst and flashflood of August 2010 in Leh district, 1431 houses were either completely destroyed or received substantial damages (Damage Assessment Report; TATA-LAHDC). Leh district has a very harsh climate. In winter, the temperature goes as low as -30 degree centigrade. In an immediate relief and response work, 12 various organisations provided temporary shelters (camps, tents and huts) to the affected community. Around 35 various governmental and nongovernmental organisation were engaged in distribution of blankets and beddings to these affected people. In both the cases, various organisations responded quickly to the immediate needs of the affected communities. Distribution of relief goods like food medicines, blankets etc during a disaster response is a significant but neglected area of planning and in order to prevent secondary threat and bring down further fatalities. Factors affecting distribution network designs In this section, broader goals in a commercial supply chain are identified. Further, cost and service factors which determines adoptions of distribution network designs keeping in mind the broader goals of a firm is dealt with. This section provides a platform to study that how the similar factors from the commercial supply chain, when operational in humanitarian relief chain is prioritized and subsequently on the basis of this prioritization a distribution network design is adopted in a humanitarian relief chain. After discussing the broader goals, service and cost factors in commercial supply chain, the same factors are studied in respect of humanitarian supply chain. The various distribution network designs as present in the existing commercial supply chains are then evaluated on the similar parameters to determine an appropriate distribution network design, in the last mile and immediately after the floods (as the study is centered in the last mile and during the first three months). This section, thus provide the basis on which the analysis of government’s distribution process during first three months of Kosi floods, is done in the later sections of the study. Factors affecting distribution network designs Performance of distribution network is evaluated broadly along two dimensions:- 
Customer needs that are met
Cost of meeting customer needs.
These broad goals, guides a company to adopt a distribution network design which in turn also determines the strategies for, the inventories, transportations, facilities and handling and information. Structure of a distribution network also influences key service factors which are essential to achieve better customer services and ensure customer satisfaction. Some of these factors are: 
Response Time
Product Variety
Product Availability
Customer Experience
Order Visibility
Returnability
Apart from these service factors, there are four main cost factors, which are also considered as the main drivers in a supply chain. These factors are: 
Inventories
Transportation
Facilities and handling and
Information
Distribution network designs are adopted in such a way that it affects the above stated factors (cost and services) to achieve its strategic goals. In a commercial supply chain, companies driven by profitability, decides on adopting a distribution network design that would decrease its cost and increase its revenues. In humanitarian supply chain, service factors like Response time, product availability etc are prioritized before cost factors while determining distribution network designs. Response Time is the time between placing an order and receiving the delivery.Product Variety is the different number of products that a distribution network has to offer.Product Availability is the probability of having a product in stock when order arrives. Customer experience includes the ease with which a customer can place and receive their order. The ability to track the order from placement to delivery is order visibility and the ability to return unsatisfactory merchandise is the returnability. Same factors when operate in a relief chain behave differently. Some of these differences have been elaborately dealt with, in earlier sections. The reasons for emergence of these differences are discussed below: 
Strategic Goals :- The ultimate goal of a relief chain is to save lives and reduce human sufferings. The stakes of supplies, in a relief chain are human life and health.
Uncertainties:- As discussed in earlier sections, relief chain operates in an extremely uncertain environment. The demand uncertainties pertaining to location, type and various demands great flexibilities in a relief chain.
Slack (1991), Beamon and Balcik (2008) have emphasized on the importance of flexibility in a relief chain. They have discussed, the following, three flexibilities in their respective works:- 
Volume Flexibility (ability to respond to different magnitudes of disasters): Volume flexibility allows an organisation to respond to different magnitudes of disaster, with a wider range of relief in less response time. Beamon and Balcik defines volume flexibility as the number of tier I supplies (individual units) an organisation can provide during the critical time period for relief, ie, the time during which the greatest number of lives is lost.
Delivery Flexibility (time to respond to disasters): Beamon (2008) defines delivery flexibility as the minimum response time, which is the elapsed time between the onset of disaster and the arrival time of the organisation’s first supplies to the disaster’s site.
Mix Flexibility: Mix flexibility for the relief chain is the ability of an organisation to provide different types of items during a particular period.
Hence, from above discussion, it becomes apparent that unlike distribution network in supply chain whose performance is measured on the basis of customer needs and costs involved, distribution network in relief chain should be evaluated on the following parameters:- 
Beneficiaries’ needs that are met.
The Time in which these needs are met.
Beneficiaries covered/Leftout by the distribution network or in other words, the reach of the distribution network.
As the basic differences in a distribution network designs in a supply chain and a relief chain are so evident, it is also expected that key factors in a distribution network design will also be prioritized differently in the two supply chains. The key factors in a distribution design, as discussed earlier are, Response time, product variety, product availability, customer experience, order visibility, and returnability. The order in which these factors are prioritized in a relief chain are as discussed as under:- 
Response Time: As stakes in a relief chain is human life and health, response time is a very crucial factor. Critical time period for relief is the time during which the greatest number of lives is lost. Efficiency of relief chain in the critical time period plays a significant role in bringing down the total death toll. In 2010, Leh flashflood, Major Neetu singh, of 740 TPT workshop, 7014 EME battalion, reported that their unit responded to the disaster within 10 minutes and saved 89 lives from a place, 3 kms away from Phyang village. Damage assessment report of the district authorities lists 248 dead and 76 people missing from the whole district. (www.ladakhflood.org). Thus, with a very quick response to the disaster, the unit has saved lives equal to 36% of the total deaths. This explains how crucial, response time in a relief chain can be.
Product Availability: Product availability is probability of having a product in stock when the demand arises. Due to, disasters being extremely random and uncertain events, to maintain the product availability for the affected area and population is rather challenging (as location, type and volume is uncertain), It requires a great deal of preparedness and planning.
The repercussions of not having the product availability can be huge. As procuring and arranging all the goods after a disaster has struck, would lead to increase in the response time which might result in increase of losses of life and property.
Product Variety: Product Variety is different number of products that a distribution network offers. In response to a disaster, a variety of products are required to be supplied in the affected area. This could range from ready to eat foods, bottled water, a variety of medicines, hygiene kits, tents, blankets, clothing etc. Group discussions conducted in Rampur Lahi, Madhepura revealed that Post Kosi flood, people taking rescue on MVC embankment survived on Khichdi (dal and rice cooked together) which was served once a day, for a month.
Customer Experience: Beamon (2008) states that aid recipient does not have the luxury of market choice for supply. Thus, the aid recipient operates in an unregulated monopoly, where the stakes associated with supplies are often life or death. Hilhorst (2002) have raised the concern that as there is no formal contract between NGOs and recipients may not have effective mechanisms for representation and often lack recourse to appeal, if their expectations are not met. All this, however, does not mean that customer experience is not important or does not have a significant part to play in success of a relief chain. A section ahead, deals with a case study which shows that how people’s refusal to accept bad relief goods have resulted in clogging of warehouses, railway godowns etc. Allthough, most of the relief goods are distributed for free, dignity of the beneficiaries should not be hurt at any cost. It is essential to ensure the beneficiaries’ satisfaction while distributing the goods to them.
Returnability: Returnability of relief goods which were dispatched with intentions of free distribution, would mean additional costs involved. In cases of NGOs returnability, which signifies failure of projects, might also have a negative impact on its functions in future projects as well. NGOs, which have two major bottom lines: mission effectiveness and financial sustainability (Moore, 2000; Lindenberg and Bryant 2001, p 218) would rather prefer to dump these goods on site rather than to return it to the source. Its repercussions could be clogging of the relief chain facilities, which would mean additional pressure on it.
Order Visibility: Order visibility is a characteristics of commercial supply chain. Its practicality in a humanitarian relief chain can be put to fierce debate. However, obtaining some sort of visibility in a relief chain can be significant particularly in the last mile distribution. For eg, visibility about date, time and place of arrival of medical assistance would help needy people to congregate at one place, thereby, making it easier for relief operations as well. However, it might come up with additional disadvantages as well. Like there can be chances of pilferages, looting or threatening socially vulnerable groups and preventing them to collect relief.
Of the six factors, due to the reasons cited above, response time is of extreme priority as the stakes involved with it are human life and health. Product availability and product variety comes next, respectively. These two factors are essentially important as it deals with meeting up with the basic needs of the affected communities. Customer experience, with which, are associated the important issues of human rights and dignity, comes next and returnability and order visibility which can be questioned on the basis of its practicality and implications inspite of its significance are placed down in the order of priority. Hence, the order of priority which determines the importance of the various factors in a relief chain are as under:- 
Response Time
Product Variety
Customer Experience
Returnability
Order Visibility
This sequence in priority of the above listed factors will be utilized to analyse the merits of the commercial distribution network designs and to adopt some of these merits in the distribution framework for the humanitarian relief chain, which will be discussed in the later sections. Next section deals with the analysis of distribution network designs as propounded by Peter Meindl and Sunil Chopra Distribution Network Designs in a Supply Chain. Meindl and Chopra, in their paper, ‘Designing the delivery network for a supply chain’, have discussed six distinct distribution network designs that can be adopted in a commercial supply chain management. These six network designs are:- 
Manufacturer Storage with direct shipping
Manufacturer Storage with direct shipping and In Transit merge.
Distributor Storage with package Carrier delivery
Distributor Storage with last mile delivery
Manufacturer/Distributor Storage with customer pick up
Retail Storage with customer pick up
Authors have used several factors for the evaluation of the performance of these network designs. These factors are categorized broadly into:- 
Cost Factor
Inventory
Transportation
Facilities and Handling
Information
Service Factor
Response Time
Product Variety
Customer Experience
Returnability
Order Visibility
Manufacturer Storage with direct shipping In this distribution network design, a product is delivered directly from the manufacturer to the customer location. The design either bypasses retailers or restricts their role to the information flow only. All the inventories are stored at manufacturer’s end. Retailer does not hold any inventories. Diagrammatic representation is as under:- Fig:08 Manufacturer Storage with direct shipping Merits 
Inventory: This design allows a manufacturer to centralize inventories at his end. A manufacturer can aggregate demand across all retailers, as a result, a high level of product availability is maintained with lower level of inventory.
Facilities and Handling: The design allows a supply chain to save on the fixed cost of facilities. This is because, all the inventories are centralized at the manufacturer’s end. Manufacturer also saves on additional warehouses as aggregation of inventories at Manufacturer’s end eliminates the need of additional warehousing space.
As the retailer is eliminated from the product flow, some costs on handling is also saved. However if a manufacturer is incapable to develop single unit delivery, it can have significant negative impact on handling cost and response time.
Product Variety: The design allows a manufacturer to maintain a high level of product variety to its customer. Drop shipping model allows a customer to choose from any of the products, a manufacturer produces, as all of these products are aggregated at manufacturer’s end.
Product Availability: Retailers does not hold any inventory. All the products are aggregated and stocked at manufacturer’s end. This allows a manufacturer to maintain a high level of available product
Customer Satisfaction: In terms of delivery of goods, customer satisfaction is usually good. However, difficulty in handling returns might lead to customer dissatisfaction.
Demerits 
Transportation: Outbound transportation costs (costs incurred in sending material out of a facility) are high because of the average outbound distance to the end consumer is large.
Information: A retailer forms an important link, between the manufacturer and customer. As the retailer does not hold any inventory, a strong information mechanism is required to disseminate correct information about the product availability to the customers and demands to the manufacturer.
Response Time: Due to the increased outbound distances, response time is usually high.
Order Visibility: It is very important and at the same time very difficult to ensure order visibility. Order tracking is difficult as requires complete integration of information system at both the retailer and the manufacturer.
Returnability: Returnability is expensive under this design as it would require establishment of additional set ups by the retailers or a product can be directly returned by the customer which would involve high transportation and coordination costs.
Manufacturer Storage with direct shipping and In Transit merge One of the disadvantages of a drop shipping is that an end customer might get several small packages from various manufacturer directly, as products are send directly from manufacturers to the customers. Manufacturer storage with intransit merge combines pieces of the order coming from different locations so that the customer gets a single delivery. The design is illustrated below: 
Fig09 Manufacturer Storage with direct shipping and In Transit merge
Cost involved in In-transit merge is slightly higher than drop shipping as, although transportation cost is dropped due to reduction in outbound distance but investment required for setting up facilities for handling and information makes the total cost go up. Service factors remain similar to that of drop shipping except that this model provides better customer satisfaction as it facilitates merging of several packages so that customer gets a single delivery. Distributor Storage with package Carrier delivery Under this design inventory is held, not by manufacturers but by the distributors/retailers in intermediate warehouses. In order to Transport products from the intermediate location to the final customer packaged carriers are used. The following diagram depicts the Distributor storage with package carrier delivery, distribution network: 
Fig 10 Distributor Storage with package Carrier delivery
Merits
Cost Factor
Transportation: Transportation cost is less than the cost involved in manufacturer storage designs. Intermediate warehouse decreases the outbound distance. Although, inbound distance is increased, more economic mode of transportation can be employed for inbound shipments. Hence the overall transportation cost goes down.
Information: A less complex information infrastructure is required as compared to the manufacturer storage, as the ware house serves as the buffer between the manufacturer and the customer.
Service Factor 
Response Time: As compared to the Manufacturer storage designs, response time in this design is less. This is because the intermediate warehouses, which are located closer to the customer, reduce the outbound distance.
Customer Experience: The design allows achieving better customer satisfaction as it facilitates single delivery in less response time.
Order Visibility: As a single shipment reaches the customer from the warehouse, involving one stage of the supply chain, the design offers better order visibility.
Order Returnability: An intermediate warehouse ensures better returnability as compared to the manufacturer storage as order returnability can be processed using this facility
Merits 
Inventory: Due to setting up of intermediate warehousing facilities, aggregation of demand is uncertain. The cost of maintaining inventories at the intermediate warehouses is more than storage at manufacturer’s end.
Facilities and Handling: Facilities and Handling cost is also high as compared to the manufacturer designs as this design prevents aggregation of products at one place.
Product Availability: In order to maintain the same level of availability as the manufacturer storage a higher cost would be required in this distribution network design. The design also offers less product variety as compared to the other two designs.
Distributor storage with last mile delivery Distributor storage with last mile delivery is a distribution network designed with intentions of delivering the products to a customer’s doorsteps. As the transportation cost involved is bound to high, more warehouses are required to be located in such a way that they are much closer to the customers. As a result infrastructural cost is also high in this design. Fig 11 Distributor storage with last mile delivery Merits and Demerits This design performs, extremely good on service factors. However, better customer service comes at a higher cost. As the warehouses are setup closer to the customers, response time is very less. The design requires huge infrastructural setup and maintenance cost. Product availability requires heavy expenditure and product variety is also less as compared to distributor storage with package carrier delivery. Manufacturer/Distributor Storage with customer pick up 
In this design, inventory is stored at the manufacturer or distributor’s warehouse, but a customer has to come to a designated place to pick up their orders placed through internet, phone or any other medium. The figure represented below shows the functions in this distribution network design:-
Fig 12 Manufacturer/Distributor Storage with customer pick up
This network requires higher response time. However, if a product is stored at pick up sites response time is substantially reduced. Transportation cost is usually lower as more economic mode for transport can be selected for the inbound distance (Manufacturer to the pickup sites). The network requires heavy investment in the infrastructure for information which is necessary not only to aggregate demand, but also to maintain order visibility.
Retail storage with customer pickup
Inventory is stored locally at retail stored locally at retail stores. Customers place their order and collect it from the store itself. Product is delivered almost immediately. Mainataining product availability requires heavy expenses and product variety is also least as compared to all the other designs discussed earlier. Analysis Dynamics of a disaster is such, that it would be illogical to use any of these distribution network designs in its totality. These designs have been framed for commercial supply chain which has significant differences when compared to the relief chain. Adoption of any of these designs for a relief chain is neither recommended nor desired. Infact, arriving at a distribution network design for a disaster response is a herculean task, as there are so many uncertainities in terms of magnitude, location, type etc. No two disaster will be same in its characteristic. Hence applicability of designing a distribution network prior to disaster will always be questioned. But one thing that goes strongly in favor of it is that a distribution network design for a disaster prone area which is constructed after extensive planning enhances the preparedness level manifolds. This is crucial for an effective disaster response. The analysis of these designs is done with a purpose to study those aspects which would hold significant merit if incorporated in any distribution network designed for a humanitarian relief chain. While analyzing the applicability of drop shipping model in a disaster situation, a crucial point which emerges, is that the outbound distance is large. As a result, the model performs low in response time. As discussed earlier, response time is of extreme importance in a relief chain. Thus, the model apparently seems to be inapplicable in a disaster situation, however, not in every case. Unlike a supply chain, donors in a relief chain can be located at any distance from the site of the disaster. Infact, during the critical phase of a disaster, the greatest help comes from the local community, from and around the affected area. This pattern is seen in more or less every disasters as logically, considering the time and distance, local responders are also the first responders during the critical phase. List of NGOs that were involved disaster response in the first months during the 2008 Kosi flood and later the 2010 Leh flashflood as shown in the appendix, substantiates the fact. Evaluating the model in a critical time period and for donors at shorter outbound distance from the beneficiaries/affected area, might yield interesting outputs. In the critical time period when outside help has not arrived, donors from within and around the affected area play a key role in relief work. This model can be applied successfully for this small group of donors and for a small period of the critical phase of the disaster. The diagrammatic representation is given below:- Fig 13 Distribution Network Design in Humaniatrian Logistics for local Donors Due to shorter outbound distance, Response time is low. Coordinating agency plays a key role in information flow between the beneficiaries and the donors. The coordinating agency also plays an important regulation which ensures distribution as per the needs of the community and capacity of the donors. Product availability might suffice basic needs of the community for a very short period of time. That depends on the size of beneficiaries, level of disaster and help that is generated by the local donors. However, the model can ensure equitable distribution of aid generated by the local donors, through an effective coordinating agency. The model can be applied only to a small fraction of donors and in a critical phase only. The Manufacturer storage with direct shipping and In-transit merge, is an improvement of direct shipping. The concept of In-transit merge can be useful in a disaster relief chain. Disaster creates sudden demand for numerous products, like, ready to eat food, bottled water, medicines, Utensils, tarpaulin, blankets, bedding, soaps, sanitary napkins etc. Various organisations prepare their relief kit and distribute it in the affected region. Most of the time, the relief kit contain several common products. As a result there is a large number of aid duplication in the time of delivery. In 2010, Leh flashflood, more than 50 organisations came with their aid in the first month after the disaster. 16 organisations, distributed, blankets in leh town. Other severely affected regions like Ney, Lehdho, Skindyang, Khaltsi, and Wanla were not covered at all, even by a single organisation. As a result, in some parts, families received more than 05-06 blankets, whereas, in other parts families received none. In-Transit merge allows appropriate packaging of relief kit ensuring greater product variety and its equitable distribution as well. Various donors/organisation can be more efficiently managed if the relief chains of these organisations are integrated at one point. Distributor storage with carrier delivery requires a less complex information system. This is due to the intermediate warehouse setup that is created in this design. In a humanitarian relief chain, where a web of donors emerge after a disaster, most of them situated at several thousand of Kms away. This structure can help in establishing a better Information structure. Distributor storage with last mile delivery offers most interesting insights, when analysed with the lens of a humanitarian relief chain. Response time is very quick and products are delivered at home. Thus, the design offers two most desirable functions in a relief chain. Both of these merits are achieved by warehouses closer to the customers. In a relief chain distribution network, as a disaster can strike suddenly at any place, the location and number of beneficiaries can n ot be predicted. Thus, predetermining location of warehouses is again a difficult work to accomplish. Some level of predictability can be achieved by hazard profiling of disaster prone regions. Enhancing the capacities of existing structures (like FCI godowns) so that, it can be used as a facility during a disaster response. This disaster preparedness approach would be more feasible and sustainable option rather than creating new facilities altogether. In manufacturer or distributor storage with consumer pick up, customers collect their products from the pick up sites. In a disaster situation where there is major outflow of beneficiaries from the affected region, distribution centers can be established along this way to maximize reach and minimize response time. Retail storage with customer pickup, although has least response time amongst all the designs, it does not have much to offer to its relief chain. Primarily, because, retailer storage would be within the affected area, thereby making the facilities dysfunctional (as it itself, would be affected by the disaster) in the crucial time of need. CHAPTER FOUR The Impact of Floods in Rampur Lahi Rampur Lahi- an island of deprivation Reasons for calling Rampur Lahi an island are not geographical. Several years in development neglect followed by a devastating flood made the village largely inaccessible. People usually go in and out of the village on foot. Few lucky ones commute through motorcycles that were donated by a political leader during his election campaign. Sadly, due to the absence of proper roads, these motorcyclists have to make their way through fields and heavily silted embankment bunds. There are places in the village, which cannot be reached even by motorcycles as there are no bridges on the rivers. Illiteracy, Poverty, Social segregation, hunger, disease, all these and related problems are, widespread and abundant. This section provides the village profile, which was prepared in February 2010, approximately 18 months after the Kosi floods. Administrative and Geographic Location: Rampur Lahi village comes under Shankarpur block in Madhepura district in Bihar. One of the poorer and less developed states in India, Bihar is frequently affected by severe floods. The village lies on the northern boundary of Madhepura district. From the north of Rampur Lahi, boundaries of Supaul district begin. On its North West, is Jharkaha Panchayat and Bathan Parsah Panchayat is on the south and the south west of the village. There are two rivers that flow across the village, Jogiya chahi river or the chilauni river that flows on its east and Badiyahi Dhar that flows North to south, bisecting the village into almost two equal parts. Badiyahi Dhar emerged as a major river only after the Kosi floods. Before that it was a small stream, insignificant in size and volume. Demography: The village has a total population of about 10,500 people approximately (as reported by the Village Sarpanch and Mukhiya who have based the figure on village level counting conducted in 2010). It is divided into 12 wards. Each ward has various settlements or tola. These tolas are formed on the basis of caste and religion. Spatial polarization is very vivid in the village. Although, 65% of the population is from the scheduled caste, Yadavs have major influence and control over the village. After the political constituencies in the village were reserved for dalit women, SCs have started enjoying political representation. This has not been well accepted by Yadav’s and other higher caste people and has become a major cause of rift. Communities residing in Rampur Lahi are: 
Maha Dalit
Rishidev
Sardar
Baantar
Mushar
Ram
Paswan
Yadav
Jha
Sharma
Shah
Muslim
The High caste people amongst them are, Jha and Sharma. The two groups are very less in number. Yadav’s, notified under other backward classes are the major group in rift with all the other castes categorized as extremely backward. Houses: The total number of housing structures in the village in 2010 as reported by SEEDS, an NGO working in post flood context, is 4357. These structures include sheds those are constructed for cattle, or store house for grains and fodder. Most of these houses are made up of bamboo and mud without a proper plinth or a strong base, definitely not flood prone structures. Few well to do people have strong housing structures, but the number of such houses in the village is very small. APL and BPL families: 2183 people were listed in APL and BPL list till February 2010. The list has not been revised even after one and a half years of flood. It is expected that people are further pushed to poverty after the floods. Although, 45 days before the floods, 1800 applications were accepted for consideration for inclusion of names in the list, the exercise should be undertaken all over, again after the floods. Health: The village does not have a primary health centre. The nearest PHC, is in Bathan Parsah Panchayat. On top of it, there is complete absence of public transport system in the village. Therefore, taking a patient to the health centre or hospitals at Shankarpur or Madhepura is a daunting task. Connectivity: Much has already been discussed about the poor connectivity in the village. Public transport system is completely absent. The main road on MVC embankment, connecting the village to Madheli was broken at two places. A vast stretch of this road was heavily silted after the floods. At some places silt deposits were as deep as 17 cms. This makes it completely unpliable during monsoon season and the village can’t be reached by most of the vehicles. In the village ward number 01, 02 , 03, 04 and 08 has small stretches of pukka road. Most of the bridges, across the river were washed away in the floods. People have indigenously built bamboo bridges. These bridges or chachri as they call it in local parlance, are not strong enough for vehicles to cross and even two wheelers ply on it with great difficulty and caution. Electricity: Even after six decades of independence government has failed to bring in electricity in the village. There are solar cell powered street lights in all the wards except ward no 11 and 12. At homes, power is supplied through privately owned generators. Only few families in ward no, 05, 07, 08, 10, and 11 can afford it. Education: The village has 07 anganwadi Kendra, 06 primary schools and a middle school. However, their functioning leaves much to be desired. Reality is quite different. People showed extreme sense of dissatisfaction against the school teachers. On one of the days of my data collection, when I halted at an unattended tea shop, within minutes a 7-8 years old boy came running in a dirty school uniform. As he prepared tea for us, he said that he was informed about the customers on his shop by the school master. When asked, he said he goes to school because of the lunch he gets under mid day meal scheme. Teachers rarely take classes and generously give holidays when they do not feel like working. Similar complaints were conveyed by many parents during the course of data collection. A complex web of problems, one leading to the other and the other leading to several others are hence seen in the village. People are poor and illiterate, as a consequence, corruption is rampant. They become an easy prey to the corrupt goons. Public Distribution System: PDS is highly ineffective. Corruption is so deep rooted that, quite often several people sleep hungry after being denied their full quota of ration. Cases were reported where school masters have extracted money from people after ensuring them that they can get their names inserted in the BPL list. Market: There are small market places in the village. These markets have few shops with very limited stock of products. The six market places in the village are located in ward no 01, 02, 06, 09 and 12. Place of Worship: Hindus have a Kali temple, Hanuman temple and few champawati sthan to pray. Muslims have a big mosque in the neighboring panchayat which is not very far from ward number 2 and 3 of the village. Community Buildings: Other than school and anganwadis, the village has a panchayat bhawan and a community bulding called ‘trisum bhawan’. The building was build to initiate small scale industry in village. The plan failed to take off and the building lies vacant, since then. Cattle: Livestock rearing is common in the villages. Goats, cows, buffaloes and horses are commonly reared cattles in Rampur Lahi. Yadavs own maximum number of cattle in the village. Crops: Wheat, rice, mustard and potatoes are the commonly grown crops. In the first season after the floods, the crop yield was huge, suggesting an increase in fertility of soil. Irrigation: Village has two rivers and three canal system. In summer, when rivers and canals are dry, groundwater is extracted for irrigation using diesel run generators. Water: It has a rich groundwater source. For drinking and other purposes, people use hand pumps. Approximately, 498 pumps are installed in the village with highest number of handpumps (125) installed in ward no 04, followed by ward number 10 (78 Handpupms). The village has a pond in ward number 04 and in all, 20 wells, most of which were made dysfunctional after the flood. Potability of water is poor and has a strong iron taste in it. Sanitation: In general, people follow poor hygiene practices. Mahadalits and Rishidevs are particularly bad in maintaining hygiene. Open defection, quite often near the water sources, is a common practice. UNICEF and CARITAS have constructed toilets for families in the village. Where toilets by CARITAS have received general acceptance, people do not use UNICEF toilets as they feel they are too small and congested. Its pit is also small and gets filled quickly. Soap for washing hands are used by few. Mud is normally used instead of soap for washing hands. Natural Resources: Bamboo trees are important resource in the village. A Large number of people are skilled in weaving bamboos. Every house structure has significant bamboo work. Even bridges have been constructed out of bamboo. It had a major role to play in flood relief where evacuation boats were built out of bamboos. Also several people took shelter on bamboo platforms during worst period of the Kosi floods. Soil is very fertile. Heavy siltation acted as an impediment for farmers, but the fine quality silt can be used as a resource in construction. Sources of livelihood: Agriculture and livestock rearing are the main source of livelihood. Landless farmers are large in number. Most of the people are migration prone. They migrate to urban areas in search of labor work. Other occupations include masonary, carpentry, mechanics, shopkeeping etc. People are also skilled in making products out of bamboos With this general background of the village, next section goes back to August 2008 and gives a brief description of the flood. It will provide a clearer picture of the post disaster situation and sets a stage for understanding distribution challenges in 2008 Kosi flood relief and response. Table 05 Assets, Rampur LahiWard No.Health CentreLocal OrgBank Community BldgsPolice StnMarketRation ShopAnganwadiPrimary SchoolMiddle SchoolHigh SchoolElectric PolesGen. Set.Solar LightHouses ElectrifiedKutcha RoadPukka RoadPukka BridgeBamboo BridgeBroken BridgePublic Transport01-----020101----03-030103---02-----0101-----01-030103---03-----0101----01-050102---04---01-01-----01-N.A0101-01-05---01--01--10Yes01-03--0101-06-----01-01----01-04-030201-07----------Yes02-05-----08------0101--Yes01-0201-01--09-----010101-----01-05-010102-10-----0101---Yes01-04-01-02-11-----01----Yes--03--02--12-----01--------04--01-- Source: SEEDS India, 2010 Table 05 Assets, Rampur Lahi (Continued)Ward No.Telephone (Landline)TapHand pumpWellPondPalatability of WaterNo. of HouseholdsNo. of Cattles CowBuffaloGoatHorses01--2101-Bad2000810500102--15--Bad160101270-03--N.A.01N.A.BadN.A.704090-04--1250401Bad54050601000305--1001-Bad30025501000206--29--Bad2603020600107--4001-Bad2401001001000208--5001-Bad3001001001000509--50--Bad6027050100-10--7806-Bad5005050700111--4003-Bad20025401000612--4002-Bad300355050- Source: SEEDS India, 2010 Floods in the Village: An overview 19th of August 2008; 9:00 pm IST It was a usual day. People were preparing to go to bed when someone alerted that the water level is rising in Badiyahi Dhar. The evacuation warning was relayed a day earlier on 18th August 2008, when the eastern embankment of Kosi was breached near Kusaha village in Nepal, Kusha and Haripur in Nepal and Bhimnagar and Birpur in India were inundated, alarmingly, within a few hours. The Kosi river has taken an old course of 1930s (D.V.Reddy et al, Dec 2008). Supaul, Saharsa, Madhepura, Araria and Purnia were soon to be inundated. Unaware of this, the villagers decided to ignore the warnings and wait and watch. It was a gross mistake on their part and they soon realized it, but by then it was too late. In the village, no one had any previous experiences of floods. Fig 14, A broad layout of Rampur Lahi Half of the village was trapped between two swelling rivers. Bridges were washed away. They had no other options, but to make their way through Baduyahi Dhar to find a safe route before the gushing water swept them away. The layout of village shows the two rivers flowing north to south. Chilauni River also known as the Jogiya Chahi river in the east and the Badiyahi Dhar in the centre of the village. Before floods, Badiyahi Dhar was an insignificant stream. In summers, people used to grow vegetables on its dry bed and banks. It was never imagine that suddenly the river could rise in volume to such a great extent. People living in ward no 05 (some portion), ward no 06, 08, 09, 10, 11 and 12 were badly trapped with no safe route to evacuation. People from Ward no 05 (on the west of Badiyahi Dhar) ward no 03, 04 and 07 could make their way safely to the nearby MVC embankment. Ward no 01 and 02 were not severely affected and people here were not forced to evacuate. CHAPTER FIVE Relief and Response experiences of Rampur Lahi: The Distribution Challenge Critical Time Period-Relief and Response The case study of Rampur Lahi is a typicalc example of how missing on an opportunity of timely and safe evacuation can lead to magnification of the impact of disaster and increase in the complexities of ensuring response and relief. From the data, it appears that the following factors played an important role in increasing the impact of the floods: 
Absence of Risk Perception
Absence of Community Preparedness
Absence of Effective Communication System
Absence of Public Transport System
Large number of highly vulnerable groups.
1 Absence of risk perception: During data collection, it became evident from the people’s response that people had ignored the warnings of the government. They never realized how badly their village could be affected, until they found themselves trapped amidst gushing water, with corpses flowing all around them. None of the villagers had any experience or memories of flood in this area. There was a clear absence of risk perception. By deciding against evacuation, people found themselves helpless, as a large number of them were trapped amidst two rivers, one of which was created in the floods itself. People living in ward no 05 (eastern side of the river) 06, 08, 09, 10, 11 and 12 had no access to safe route after Badiyahi Dhar was flooded and bridges were washed away. Worst trapped people were at Maharaji Tola in ward no 12. They were blocked not only by Badiyahi Dhar, but also by the Chilauni river. On the top of it, they had no higher ground were they could take refuge. They had constructed bamboo platforms and took shelter on these platforms till the outside help arrived. 2 Absence of Community Preparedness: Lack of community preparedness was another major factor which delayed the evacuation and relief process. There was no co-ordination of any kind. People would have shunned the idea of community based disaster preparedness plan before the floods. But after having seen such a disaster they now realize the importance of such interventions and have shown their willingness to support such activities in future. 3 Absence of Effective Communication System: The dissemination of early warnings was not pursuant to the extent that people followed the instructions for evacuation. Poor infrastructure for communication restricted information flow only to few families and that too, through few media. As discussed earlier, electricity is a rare commodity in the village and so is the television Warnings were relayed through radio. People remember, Chief Minister’s strong messages to evacuate. ‘Jaan hai to Jahan hai’ and other such strong messages were persistently relayed. However, did not make the impact, which a visual media such as this, could have had. The village also had no landlines (telephone) connection. But some had mobile phones and took good care of them. Relaying information of disaster threats could have been better relayed through text messages or through computer operated calls on their mobile phones. 4 Absence of Public Transport System: Consider a situation where a paralyzed man is told to evacuate to avoid possible disaster threats. Several men come and go, each one of them shouting the same thing, “Run, it’s a flood.” No one makes an effort to arrange for his evacuation. The man drowns and is later blamed for not paying attention to repeated warnings. Analogically, the situation of Rampur Lahi was exactly the same. Pre existing infrastructure was extremely poor. With no public transport system in place, commuting even under normal situation is a challenge. In the floods, villagers were handicapped by the lack of transportation facilities. Although, warnings for early evacuation were relayed by the government, this by itself did not enable people in Rampur Lahi to evacuate. Timely exodus of ten thousand five hundred people with any public transport system was a major challenge even if they had heeded the warning. 5 Large number of highly vulnerable groups. Sixty five percent of the village’s population is from socially and economically backward class. Most of the men migrate in non agricultural season to earn a living. Main inhabitants in the village are women, children and the aged. The village has a large group of disabled people as well. The floods have left many stories about the difficulties faced by the families of disabled people during the evacuation. Some of them are discussed in later sections. Inspite of all difficulties, perhaps like all other disasters, this disaster also demonstrated one thing very clearly, and that is, the desire to live, brings out exceptional courage and make a person act, in ways which he would have, otherwise, never thought of. As we go deeper into the case study, we came across, several heroic deeds of men and women who displayed exceptional courage for the safety of their families and community in the toughest of time. Most of the people were trapped due to their negligent behavior towards the evacuation warnings and due to the emergence of new river which bisected the village into two equal halves. By morning 20th August, houses of most people (except in ward no. 01 and 02) were submerged. The water was rising at an alarming rate. They needed to evacuate immediately, as staying in houses was no more possible. People started moving out of the houses looking for some safe shelters within the village only. Safety and Shelters during flooding As mentioned earlier the village has no specific portions of highland topography which could provide them shelter in the events of floods. Lack of risk perception and community preparedness has prevented any prior construction of safe shelter units and neither did the villagers have any evacuation plan. In the time of crisis, people managed to find some safe locations which could protect them from flooding waters, atleast for some days. The locations where people of different wards took refuge are:- 
Ward No. 01 & 02- Not much affected
Ward No. 03, 04 & 07- Trisum Bhavan for immediate shelter and then took shelter at MVC embankment thereafter.
Ward No. 05- Rajender Yadav’s house as immediate shelter and after some time took shelter at MVC embankment.
Ward No. 08 & 09- Chhedi Yadav’s house for three days and then took shelter at MVC embankment.
Ward No. 06, 09, 10, 11 & 12 some families of Ward No. 05 – Took shelter at the embankment of the small canal
Ward No 12 Maharaji Tola, No safe location. People created Bamboo platforms and lived on it until government’s help for evacuation arrived.
Although people stood together for each other in times of crisis, something which they sadly refused to give up was their caste chauvinism and other social taboos. This was reflected in various safe locations where people temporarily stayed together, particularly, at Rajinder Yadav and Chhedi Yadav’s houses. Maha dalits from ward number 05 took refuge on the roof of Rajender Yadav’s house. They describe with pain that although Rajender Yadav was generous enough to provide shelter, discrimination on the basis of caste, was humiliating. The roof was divided into two sections. Higher caste people who were less in number occupied the larger section and Mahadalits, who were more in number, occupied the smaller section. They defected at one end and took water from the other end. Mahadalits were not allowed to take water from the so called higher caste people’s end. Similar complaints came from Mahadalits of ward number 08 and 09, who took shelter on Chhedi Yadav’s house for three days. Even 18 months after the incident, Mahadalits vividly remember the humiliation and spoke about it in whispers. On the other hand, Mahadalits of ward no 09 were genesrously helped by the Muslims of Jharkaha Panchayat during their stay in that region during the flood. They say, muslims helped them with food and resources like bamboos and gave them a brotherly and humane treatment. “These muslims showed true genorousity and their conduct was better than some of our hindu men,” many mahadalits from ward no 09 repeated in unision. People, who were trapped between Badiyahi Dhar and Jogiya Chahi, made their way upto the small embankment bund which passes through this region. They could not have stayed on this embankment for long as, it feared submergence, and moreover, they had little to eat, as houses were at some distance from the embankment and less could be carried upto this point. Worst hit people were those living in Maharaji Tola on the eastern side of the Jogiya Chahi river. Evacuation, on their own was not possible. They had to cross two rivers and had no boats for this purpose. Unlike other people in the village they had no access to a safer location like bund embankment or even a strong building. People constructed high bamboo platforms. They stayed on it till arrangements for their evacuation were made by the government after a fortnight. People ate ready to eat food like sattu, choora and corn. They defecated from one end of platform and took water from the other end. They had covered the defecating corners with a plastic sheet in order to give some privacy to people. About eight to nine people out of every ten on each platform were sick. People in all these shelters were aware that they can’t stay for long on these locations as with the rising waters even these shelters would not be safe. Cheddi Yadav’s house feared collapse amidst the gushing water. Luckily he had thousands of bricks in stock which he used to divert the flow, to some extent, away from the weaker part of the building. People on the small embankment bund were threatened to further evacuate, as the water level had reached the edges of the embankment and could have been completely submerged at any time. People, on maharaji tola, stayed on the platform, not knowing how long they can survive under these conditions. All of them were unsure about what would happen if the water rises. As the water rose…. As the water rose, it became evident that some lives will definitely be lost if they do not evacuate further. However, with not a single boat in the village and with no hope of the already delayed government’s arrival of help, the evacuation movement seemed suicidal. Indigenous Knowledge comes to rescue: Despair turned into hope, when Nunulal Sardar built a boat using his bamboo weaving skills. He lived with his family in ward number 09. They were also trapped between the two rivers and were desperately looking for a way to escape. Nunulal Sardar, bamboo mistri by profession, used his skills to make a raft like structure from bamboos. He tied empty drums in between two such rafts to make a boat strong enough to carry five-six people at a time. With this boat, he helped several people to cross Badiyahi dhar, from where they could make their way to the MVC embankment. However, he charged Rs 500 to 1000 from every family to help them get across. From Nunulal’s case and Chhedi Yadav’s case, discussed later, the significance of socio-economic factors that determine the vulnerability of a community became evident. Nunulal Sardar evacuated people in return for money, continuously for five days, until one day after evacuating families to safety, his boat gave away. Unfortunately he drowned in Badiyahi Dhar. Families, who were just rescued by him, could do nothing but to watch their savior sink into deep and the forceful water of the river taking pride in its newly gained might. Days later, his body was found few kilometers downstream. Survived by his wife Sohagi Devi and two sons, he was the only person to have died of drowning from the village in that flood. His actions set an example for many. Several such boats came quickly after his death and by the time government’s help could come, 90% of villagers were already evacuated to safe place. The Windfall-Event that shortened the critical time period In a struggle to survive, villagers built indigenous boats, however these boats were neither safe nor had the capacity to evacuate all the villagers in time. Those who could pay, had the privilege to take the boat ride. Those who could not, simply waited and watched the water level rising. Rajinder Yadav, of ward No 05 says that, after the first week people started losing faith. Particularly, when someone’s dead body would be sighted flowing across, some of them would start crying. They feared that they would meet the same fate if the water continued to rise and if help did not come in time. Situation was even worse in Maharaji tola. Very low level of hygiene could be maintained on the bamboo platforms. As a result, most of them fell sick. None of the indigenously built boats could reach this place, as the boats were not strong enough and the crossing the two flooded rivers was very very risky. Bamboo platforms were also getting weaker as the current grew stronger and stronger. Figure 15, Breach of Embankmentleftcenter Just when people started losing hope, an unexpected event occurred which probably saved several lives. As shown in the figure 15, the village had a north-south gradient. Land from MVC embankment till Maharaji tola was all submerged under water. Infact, MVC embankment had restricted the water flow to its bunds and the, water level in the village was dangerously rising. After a week, when small embankment bund was nearly submerged, the MVC embankment breached at two places, one at Madheli Syphen and other, approximately 1000mts north from the first breach location. This led to quick decline in the level of water from the village, which reduced the critical phase substantially. However, it may have posed a risk to other settlements. The event was a big relief for the villagers, particularly those who took refuge on small embankment and on the bamboo platforms in Maharaji tola. Some Case Studies Evacuation of the Physically Disabled and mentally ill Thirty year old Jatri Devi was married to a man who developed some mental illness in 2003. Before sickness gripped Jatri’s husband, he worked as a labourer. The same year she gave birth to a daughter. She was named Paneela. She developed symptoms of polio in both legs. At the time of floods, Paneela was five years old. It would not have been very difficult for Jatri and her mother Duliya Devi to take care of the five year old, but they also had the responsibility of Jatri’s mentally ill husband. Jatri’s brother Jai Kumar Rishidev carried Paneela first to Cheddi’s Yadav’s house roof and later to the MVC embankment. Her husband was safely brought upto the MVC embankment. However, he refused to stay with the family and wandered off on the embankment itself. He has not returned home even after one and a half years of the floods. Jatri recalls the tough time she had in keeping her family safe and together. She remembers, how Paneela required constant attention even to attend nature calls. Managing her mentally ill husband was also a major challenge. Jatri is sad on her husband’s disappearance and strongly feels that government should have come forward with some sort of special assistance to help families like hers. She feels that the difficulties that she faced during the floods have made all her other subsequent problems fade into insignificance. She deals with them with more courage and strength now and also hopes to find her missing husband someday. Neelam Rishidev from ward number 09 is married to Nago Rishidev. At the time of floods, Neelam had three children, 12 year old Dhirendra, who has polio in both the legs, Two and a half year old Dilchand who is mentally retarded and 01 year old Krishna. Neelam and Nago Rishidev had to take constant care of the two younger children. In the Kosi flood, they could not help Dhirendra much. He was too old to be carried in on the lap amidst the flooding water. Dhirendra can walk with the help of a stick. He said walking in chest deep water was difficult for him. He had to use immense strength to push himself across the water. He was tired Figure 16 Widow of Nunulal Sardar along with daughter- in- law and Grandchild. Nunulal Sardar died in the floods while evacuating people on his indigenously built boat.Source: SEEDS India; 2010, Photograph by Animesh Prakash Fig 17 Families of physically disabled people, like that of, Paneela’s (in the picture) suffered great difficulties during evacuation. there were several such families in the village.Source: SEEDS India; 2010, Photograph by Animesh Prakash and thought of giving up, a number of times. But the quest for life propelled him to keep his ground firm and keep walking. He wished desperately for any kind of help. The help never came. He is happy that the disaster made him realise his physical capabilities which were stretched to such an extreme extent. Now he is no longer remorseful and ashamed of his condition, but proud of the tenacity he was able to demonstrate. Rajinder Yadav’s house is just on the shore of Badiyahi Dhar. When the floods came, his family decided to evacuate immediately. Rajinder Yadav and his wife Gulo Devi live with their son Pramod Kumar Yadav, daughter in law and two grand children. While the family was evacuating, they tried to take Rajinder’s disabled brother, Baldev Yadav along with them. They soon realized the difficulties in shifting him to a safer place. while the family moved ahead to safety, Rajinder Yadav decided to stay with his brother. Both of them were unsure, about how long they would live. Once when the water current was unexpectedly strong and the brothers were convinced that the house and the bamboo platform will be washed away, they decided to move to the small canal embankment 2-3 Kms away. Rajinder helped his brother sit on a buffalo and tread in chest deep water to reach that place. Baldev remembers how his brother motivated everyone on the canal embankment after they felt depressed on seeing the floating corpses. He would swim in to reach the dead bodies blocked by bamboo groves and push them away, so that they get out of sight of already de-motivated people. When the embankment at Madheli Syphen broke and water level came down, the brothers came back to their houses. Rajinder Yadav was happy that they survived the floods. He was extremely worried about his family, but was convinced that his son will take good care of everyone. He says, ‘Reuniting with all the family members after the floods, was the happiest moment of my life.’ He says that the Government’s help came after the worst was overcome by their own ingenuity and self help. Scenario after the Critical Time Period Relocated Survivors It is estimated that 80 percent of the villagers managed to vacate on their own even when the water level was rising and the current were strongest. During group discussions, it was observed that people who belonged to poor social and economic classes mostly stayed in the ad-hoc settlement or in the relief camps. People with better economic and social standing either took shelter at a relatives’ place or took houses on rent in nearby places. Majority of people from Rampur Lahi, who stayed in relief camps were on MVC embankment. As shown in the Map, the MVC embankment passes the village through ward number 02 and 03. The embankment is on the western side of the village. From the farthest point in east (ie Maharaji Tola) it is approximately 05 Kms away. Villagers who managed to escape from their settlements first halted on the MVC embankment. Majority of them stayed here for another three to four months and then went back to their houses, as the water receded. Some of them moved to relative’s homes or migrated to an unaffected region.Most of these people were amongst those who could not cross Bariyahi Dhar due to some reason or the other. One reason amongst many was their inability to hire boats to cross the river. About seven families from ward no 12, were living on the embankment even after 18 months of the incident. They have lost their houses and lands in the disaster. Approximately, 1300 people from Maharaji Tola, were still trapped on the Bamboo Platforms. Most of them were sick and were desperately looking for relief assistance. Fig 18 Children taking bath in the newly formed river-Badiyahi Dhar.Photograph by Animesh Prakash, 2010 Fig 19 One of the boats used for evacuation and relief distribution in the village. These boats had very limited capacity. Photograph by Animesh Prakash, 2010 Government’s Aid Arrives Government’s response reached Rampur Lahi only after 26th of August, 2008. Most of the people had been evacuated by then with local support. Although late, it was a great respite for people, particularly in Maharaji Tola. Boats of the Army, NDRF and Para military forces came with relief material which was distributed and also helped evacuate people. Capacity of these boats was limited, and only 05-06 people could be evacuated at a time. Women, children, sick and old people got the first preference. The village of Rampur Lahi has a population of about 10,500 people approximately. Out of 8,500 severely affected people, 1312 people were trapped in Maharaji Tola and depended on help by external agencies for rescue and relief. In due course of time, 800 out of these 1312 people were evacuated by the government. These people were dropped at safer location which was around 1500 mts away from the Singheshwar Shiv mandir. People walked in a knee deep water to reach the Shiv Mandir. They stayed in the mandir premises for 3-4 days. On 10th September, 2008 Singheshwer Mega Camp was established on Singheshwar Mela Ground, just adjacent to the shiv mandir. People staying in and around the temple shifted to the Singheshwar Mega Camp. Singheshwar Mega Camp Singheshwar Mega (SM) Camp was created on 10th September 2008 and was closed on 21st December 2008. Mr Naval Kishore Yadav, who worked as a district provident fund officer in Madhepura was appointed as the camp incharge. The mega camp was established on a huge ground adjacent to the famous Singheshwar Shiv temple. The ground is used for the annual religious fair which attracts crowd from far off places. Mr. Naval Kishore Yadav, says that, 500 trucks of sand were dumped to level the surface of the ground. The SM camp was created to serve the people evacuated from Murliganj, Mirganj, Jorgama, Shankarpur (including Rampur Lahi) and Singheshwar. About 4500 people were registered residents in the camp whereas 6000 people ate food in the camp. Inspite of this, the camp incharge says that, “It was never felt that the camp is overwhelmed with people at any point of time. The camp could have easily accommodated 6000 to 7000 more people.” Camp was divided into 04 sectors-A, B, C and D. There were 693 tents in the camp each having a capacity of 08 to 10 people. The camp had a hospital with 02 labour rooms and 03 doctors and 15 other medical staff. There were three ambulances in the camp as well. From 10th September to 21st December, 65 babies were delivered in the camp. It had 04 kitchens with a staff of 60, one kitchen and 15 staff for each of the four sectors. Facilities for water, health and hygiene were also well taken care off. About 112 pit latrines were constructed. Bathrooms were constructed only for women. About 30 handpumps were also installed. Aquaguard plant with a capacity of giving 600 lts of water per hour was installed by WorldVision at the main entrance of the camp. Utensils, buckets, clothes (sari and dhoti) blankets and polythene sheets were provided to people for personal use. The camp had a school with 400 children enrolled. Children were provided free stationary. The camp had a temporary police post with 01 inspector and 20 jawaans. The camp supported 19 self help groups. Their products were purchased in the camp itself. Some employment was generated in the camp. People were paid for their services. The camp also had a helpline for women and a yoga camp. People were given three meals a day. For breakfast they were usually served choora and curd or sattu at times. For lunch and dinner, rice, pulses and one seasonal vegetable was served. 350 gms of rice, 100 gms of pulses and 200 gms of vegetable were allocated to an adult per meal. Special meals were cooked on festivals. Chhat, diwali, durga puja and iid were celebrated in the camp with great pomp and show. Special care was taken for nutritional requirements of vulnerable groups were taken. A total of 16 malnourished children were formally identified in the camp. Lactating and pregnant women and children were given milk two times a day. Milk was procured from milk federation, Bihar government and rice was procured from Food Corporation of India. All other things were purchased from the local market. Camp had a central storage warehouse which was always guarded by policemen. In the initial stages, some people died in the camp. According to the camp, incharge says that, “The deaths were due to the preexisting sickness which developed due to the adverse conditions people found themselves. After coming to the camp we took good care of them. That is why, all the deaths occurred mainly within the first 10 days of camp’s establishment only.’ Table 06 List of people who died in Singheshwar Mega CampSNNameAge(Years)Place01Anshu Kumari02Majarhut; Singheshwar02Jaksi Devi60Patori; Singheshwar03Asha Kumari13Rampur Lahi; Shankarpur04Amit KumarNAJairampur; Murliganj05Brihaspati Rishidev50Patori; Singheshwar06Samit Kumar02Tengraha, Kumarkhand Source: From the Diary of Naval Kishore Yadav; Dated 10/09/08 Depending on their personal experiences, people in the camp expressed different views about the situation in the camp. According to Surendra Yadav of Maharaji Tola, Rampur Lahi, “Naval Kishore Yadav is like a God figure to me. My son, Stayam was born in the SM camp. My wife received very good medical attention in the camp. She was six months pregnant when the floods came. Although, Maharaji Tola was most adversely located in the village, I am fortunate to belong to that area, as otherwise, I would never have been able to make it to the SM camp.” On the other hand, Pawan Yadav from the same tola of Rampur Lahi said, “What is the use of bringing in such huge facilities together, if it fails to achieve its purpose. They could not save my daughter (Asha Kumari). Infact, she died due to the doctor’s negligence. When I took Asha to the hospital, inspite of my continuous pleading, the doctor would not attend and examine her situation. He abused and shooed me away. Only after I came back with police, he looked at my daughter. But by then it was too late.” On further investigation, I found that Dr D.N. Chaudhary, whose negligence was later confirmed, was suspended from his services and a new doctor was appointed. When asked about the quality of food in the camp, Pawan Yadav said that he was completely satisfied. “Infact it was better than what we ate at home.’ Similar response was made by Surender Yadav as well. Appriciating the religious sensitivity, Mohammad Ghiyasuddin of Maharaji Tola; Rampur Lahi said,“Our religious practices in the camp was well respected by both the staff and the other residents. Mr Naval Kishore Yadav gave us the freedom to celebrate Iid in our own way. Special meals were cooked by us. We distributed sewaiya to all the residents. Even senior officers from the Collectorate joined us in our celebrations. After such devastating floods, these festivals played important role in forgetting the traumatic experiences we have had. In the camp, participation in various festivals brought cultural and religious unity amongst people of different socio-cultural backgrounds.” To sum up, it seems that Singheshwar Mega Camp was well organized and well managed. People were satisfied in the Camp after what they had been through. The success of the camp was not only good management and leadership of the camp officers but also due to the various advantages the camp had due to its location which provided favourable conditions. First was the availability of a vast flat ground around the shiv mandir. Second the temple attracts several religious tourists and therefore is well connected with several areas including the district headquarters. As a result it received ample relief material. Infact, the camp incharge, repeatedly asserted himself accepts that the camp had a capacity to serve around 7000 more people at any point of time. In contrast to SM camp, conditions at MVC ad-hoc settlement was very poor. The next section presents the situation in MVC settlement. Readers may have a good comparative assessment of the two camps, which in turn helps in evaluating the disaster response by the government. The MVC ad-hoc settlement High embankment of MVC canal provided immediate shelter to the people affected in its vicinity. In a stretch of 06 kms, from Tapra Tola at NH107 to Madheli Syphen, the MVC embankment provided shelter to approximately 10,000 people, (estimates given by the respondents including villagers, government officials and news reporters). The embankment was the nearest safe location and high ground for many of the villages in the vicinity. People came from these villages and settled here. Soon the place turned into a kind of ad-hoc settlement. However, in terms of medical and other basic aid, issues of water, sanitation and hygiene or absense of managing authorities, the MVC ad-hoc settlement leads us to numerous learning which can be important for improvising the response in similar situations in future. Fig 20. Sketch of MVC ad-hoc settlement Due to the large concentration of people in 20 feet wide and 06 kilometers long stretch of land with very limited availability of aid, the situation in MVC settlement was extremely poor. Several NGOs were working independently in this region. There was no coordination amongst these NGOs. This had led to various complexities that kept on emerging during floods. From the list of NGOs and their intervention as procured from Madhepura collectorate, it was observed that the Government had information about only very few of the many NGOs and other agencies working on MVC settlement. These agencies are listed below:- Table 07 Organisations Intervening on and around MVC According to the Madhepura CollectorateNGOsSNName of OrganisationPlace of InterventionKind of InterventionDate of Reporting by Collectorate01Samajik Shaichanik Vikas Kendra, JhanjharpurTapra TolaOne Meal29/09/200802Sadhu Vaswani MissionMurkahi, Parsah, Rampur LahiTwo Meals29/09/200803Anand Marg Universal Relief TeamMadheli Syphon, Kumarkhand29/09/2008Government OrganisationName of CampLocation of CampCamp InchargeDate of Reporting by Collectorate04Rampur Lahi Pul ParRampur LahiRajendra Yadav, Panchayat Sewak22/09/2008 Source: Extracted from NGOs and Flood Relief Intervention Report, Madhepura Collectorate, Dated 29/09/2008; Reports on Relief Camps, Madhepura Collectorate, Dated 22/09/2008 Major issues that emerge from this data are: 
Interventions done by these agencies mainly included food support. Other needs of the people like, medical attention, sanitation and hygiene, stress debriefing were not addressed at all.
The lack information at Government’s end about other NGOs and organisations working on MVC led to absense of coordination. This in turn led to mismanagement of relief and response in the last mile. Duplication of aid was commonly reported.
Rajinder Yadav, camp Incharge of the camp at Rampur Lahi Pul was also the incharge of two other camps at Jitpur Nahar and Idgah nahar (refer to Collectorate Report on Relief Camps dated 22/09/2008). Stressed by the overwhelming responsibilities and lack of resources, these camps could not work as efficiently as the SM camp.
For example, The Rampur Lahi Pul camp (on MVC) which served 500 people had only a single handpump for use. There were 03 toilets for every 100 person and medical assistance was provided by mobile medical team. Doctors came only twice a week with very basic medicines. Unlike the hospitals at SM camp, the mobile medical team did not have the capacity to deal with medical emergencies. The camp did not have facilities like ambulances to shift the patients to a specialized hospital. The respondents who were interviewed said that on MVC they never got sufficient food for the first 15 days. They survived on one meal a day given by Sadhu Vaswani Mission. People defecated in the open as toilets were few in comparison to the number of people on MVC. The poor sanitation and hygiene issues in an already congested area led to several health complications in the coming time. Feaco-Oral contamination, water contamination and other factors led to the spread of diarrhoea. People started dying in large numbers after 15 to 20 days of their stay on MVC. From Rampur Lahi itself, 20 people were reported to have died on MVC (as said by the villagers during the group discussions).
List of people from Rampur Lahi who died on MVC and whose family members were contacted during data collection is as under:-
Table 08 People from Rampur Lahi who died on MVC and whose family members were contacted during data collectionSNName01Manik Rishidev02Reshma03Gulabi Rishidev04Rabiya Devi05Taitri Devi06Arvind Kumar07Khushilal Sardar 08Maniklal Rishidev 09Rani Kumari 10Jasiya Devi
The situation of constant food shortages improved to certain extent, after a month, when government started distributing 50 kgs of wheat and 50kgs of rice along with Rs 2,250. Supply of ready to eat food also began from Morkahi Camp. Some respondents pointed to the lack of government’s foresightedness. They said distribution of 50kgs of wheat by the government was an inappropriate step as the means to turn the wheat to flour (ie a flour mill) was unavailable in the disaster hit regions. However, Daily flood report by disaster management division dated 28/08/08 suggests that government has taken this into account during the very initial days of relief distribution. Almost all the respondents has shown their willingness to move to the government mega camp at Singheswar However, due to absence of transport they had to stay at the MVC itself. Sanjay Kumar Bharti from ward no.09, who stayed on MVC and whose uncle Manik Rishidev died there, says, we desperately wanted to shift to SM camp. However, we could reach there only by boats. The army boats would not take us as they were busy in evacuating trapped villagers from remote places. The Government did not make any arrangement for those staying on MVC to shift to the Singheshwar Mega Camp. In one of the instances, a person tried to reach Singheshwar Mega Camp on a motorcycle. He drowned near Kulchi pul. The fear prevailed after this incident and they did not make any further brave attempts to move to SM camp. Several narratives from the MVC settlement highlight the difficulties people experienced Mahendra Yadav said “The army boats that came to evacuate people from Maharaji Tola left me behind, as their priority was to evacuate children, women, sick and old people first. I could not be accommodated on the boat. After the MVC embankment broke at Madheli Syphen, situations improved rapidly. I made my way upto the MVC embankment I decided not to go to the SM camp, as from MVC, I could revisit my house more frequently. However, another reason for not going to the SM camp was the fear of any untoward incident while trying to reach the place. Going to the camp even by boat was not safe. Maximum people drowned in the flood due to toppling of overcrowded boats. In one of the incidents, a boat carrying 08 men broke down. People stayed at Atmasamarpan Vidyalaya (a school) at Bhokraha until further help arrived days later. In another incident, BDO Shankarpur, gasped for his life when his relief boat toppled. He was saved by other men on the boat. Around two and a half lakh rupees for relief distribution were also lost as the boat toppled.” Brahm Dev, Ward No 06, Rampur Lahi “Conditions at MVC was not conducive for safe living. We defecated in the canal. We had very limited access to potable water. There was only one handpump for 1000s of people. As a result, sickness spread and people started dying on MVC. My daughter Reshma was 07 years old when she died. We desperately waited for a doctor to come. When her condition became worse, I started looking for ways to take her to hospital. I could not manage to arrange a boat for her. The boats which came with relief refused to take her to the hospital in Singheswar.” Brahm Dev was particularly angry about government’s delayed response. He says, “Governments help arrived only after people had started dying in the settlement.” Sanjay Kumar Bharti, of Ward No 09, Rampur Lahi said “The most difficult problem on MVC was to arrange for a two square meal. For the first fifteen days we were given khichdi once in a day. First one month was very tough. Even when we tried to purchase food from the Shankarpur market we could not get it. Most of the ration was procured by the government and other agencies from these markets. The situation got better after a month when food started coming in from Morkahi camp. Government had also distributed 100 kgs of grain and 2,250 Rupees by then. On his Uncle Manik Rishidev’s death he says, “He started vomiting and had severe diarrhoea. There was no doctor on MVC camp. We managed to get him on a relief boat that was going back to Singheshwar. He died on the way. I have seen him suffering and then his body became lifeless, all within a span of few hours. He died on 11/10/2008. Similarly, Amit Kumar from Ward No 09, Rampur Lahi said, “We paid Moongalal Sardar Rs 500 to help us reach MVC on his boat. MVC had very poor facilities and it was an extremely dirty place. people would defecate everywhere, even close to the kitchens. My whole family suffered from diarrhoea. With the help of Dr Chandan Yadav, we were taken to a private Hospital at Mchhah. Together we were given 60 IV bottles. The treatment cost was Rs 25000 (for the whole family), even that was not sufficient to save my father (Gulabi Rishidev). To sum up, government’s negligence in emphasizing on disaster preparedness through community based disaster reisk reduction programmes resulted in increasing the impact of the floods to a large extent. Had government emphasized on these programmes most of the villagers would have timely evacuated and the impact could thus be significantly reduced. In relief and response mixed performance was seen. In the last mile performance of government in providing aid and services was poor. In government mega camps, to which relief agencies had easy accessibility, relief measures were of good standards. In the next chapter, the distribution network modal that was adopted by the government is discussed at length. The chapter also looks into the preparedness aspect of the state that had an impact on distribution at the time disaster. CHAPTER SIX Relief and Response experiences of Rampur Lahi: the Distribution Challenge State of disaster preparedness in Bihar Disaster Preparedness refers to measures taken to prepare for and reduce the effects of disasters. That is, to predict and-where possible-prevent them, mitigate their impact on vulnerable populations, and responds to and effectively cope with their consequences. Disaster preparedness is an ongoing and an integrated process which involves contributions from varying fields, like health sector, water and sanitation, logistics, institutional development etc. Preparedness cannot be achieved by distinct sectoral activities. It requires proper readiness measures to undertake various activities like emergency response, rehabilitation and recovery with an objective of providing targeted assistance. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies recognizes that a comprehensive disaster preparedness strategy should include following elements: 
Hazard, risk and vulnerability assessments
Response mechanisms and strategies
Preparedness Plan
Coordination
Information management
Early warning systems
Resource mobilization
Public education, training and rehearsals
Community based disaster preparedness
John Mitchell (1999) opines that since disaster preparedness depends on shared goals and activities across sectors, it is important that the concept be integrated into all ongoing projects. Bihar requires an extremely efficient disaster preparedness plan on paper and in practice in order to effectively deal with the fury of floods. In 2005 the rivers which caused floods in Bihar were Ganga, Sone, Punpun, Ghaghra, Gandak, Burhigandak, Andhwara group of rivers, kamala balan, Kosi and Mahananda. Twelve districts were directly affected by the floods (Annual Conference of Relief Commissioners to review the status of preparedness for South West Monsoon; 5 June 2006). The problem recurs frequently with similar complexities in the state. The, Annual Conference of Relief Commissioners to review the status of preparedness for South West Monsoon held on 5 June 2006 discussed extensively, the flood preparedness of the state. In the conference a document containing list of activities for 22 government departments were prepared. This document was intended to serve as a guideline for these departments to act appropriately in any stage of disaster. These Departments were: 
Agriculture Department
Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Department
Building Construction and Housing Department
Education Department
Energy Department
Environment and Forest Department
Finance Department
Food and civil supply Department
Health Department
Home Department
Industry Department
Department of Labour
Information and public relation Department
Planning and Development Department
Public Health Engineering Department
Road construction Department
Rural Development Department
Science and Technology Department
Transport Department
Urban Development Department
Water Resource Department
Welfare Department
The conference did give some importance to the role logistics, although it was not exclusively dealt with under separate heading. Various logistical aspects were dealt with while issuing guidelines to separate departments. The conference covered following logistical aspects: 
Procurement of goods for timely evacuation and relief distribution.
Storage of food materials, human and animal medicines and fodder at various locations to enable quick delivery of service of the affected population.
Stockpiling of medicines by Health departments.
Ensuring availability of doctors, paramedical staff in the event of an emergency.
Ensuring communication to the affected areas for delivery of essential services as well as repairing of the damaged roads and communications.
Arrangement of rescue teams/ Human resource for relief distributions and health services in the affected area.
Ensuring safe drinking water supply for affected populations.
Ensuring government order on deployment of boats during the flood for various purposes.
Inventory of various departments should be prepared and updated and sharing the same with the disaster management department for necessary action.
List of beneficiaries of relief to be prepared (after disaster) with the gelp of PRIs and NGOs and other volunteers for smooth relief distribution.
Wide dissemination of the distributed materials has to be done at the block and panchayat level for public information. The relief monitoring team will guide and direct the relief distribution in concerned areas at all levels.
The much required guidelines on logistics came in bits and pieces in this conference. This prevented the relief logistics from being completely rudderless. However, actual implementation left a lot to be desired. In other words, logistics preparedness in Bihar requires a lot of improvements. The guidelines to 22 line departments separately might have raised concerns for establishing effective coordination in the time of action. This is exactly what many volunteers experienced as a major problem in Kosi floods of 2008. For example government boats arrived in most villages after a majority of population managed to evacuate or the water level subsided below life threatening level.Specific guidelines on logistics preparedness involving all of these departments in communion was absent during The kosi floods of 2008 and even after it. Government’s Strategy for Relief and Response after the Floods The Daily flood report, dated 28/08/08, issued by the Disaster Management Division, under the signature of district Collector, it stated that, 11 blocks in the district were affected. Infact, 105 out of 126 panchayats were completely affected, whereas, rest of the 21 panchayats were affected partially. Approximately 378 villages and 10.22 lakh people were affected by the flood. About 1.35 lakh hectares of land was inundated, out of which 1.05 lakh hectares were agricultural lands. Data on crop damages and damages to houses were not available. Eight deaths were confirmed till 28/08/08. A total 177 boats including 21 motorboats were deployed for evacuation. It was reported that 34 health centre were established. 60 temporary toilets and 84 handpumps were installed. 28 cattle camps were also established. About 315 quintals of rice was distributed. Wheat was not given, considering the fact that due to the collapsed infrastructure processing of wheat would be difficult. About 30,000 families were provided cooked food. 437 qt of chura, 91 qt of sugar and 50 qt of sattu were distributed by 28/08/08. (Disaster Management Division, Daily Flood Report No. 01; 21/08/2008- 28/08/2008 ) In Shankarpur block the government followed a specific strategy for relief distribution. According to the government’s order each family would be given 100 kgs of grain, a grant of Rs 250 in addition to it, Rs 1000 for food and Rs 1000 for utensils would also be distributed. Distribution would be done through panchayat level distribution centres. Distribution Centres were demarcated on the basis of affected panchayats and wards. Distribution plan for Shankarpur block as prepared by the Madhepura collectorate (Collectorate order, release date unavailable), which includes the plan for Rampur Lahi is presented below:- As informed by the block development officer, Singheshwar; all the 09 panchayats in Shankarpur block, including Rampur Lahi were reported completely affected. Shankarpur headquarter link road at Maujma was destroyed completely. Due to forceful current of water communication was interrupted. Request for construction of Bailey bridge was sent to the concerned department. Till its construction relief, material could be brought to the Shankarpur head quarter, only through boats. Relief distribution centers were sought to be located as close to the affected areas as possible. Of all the 09 affected panchayats, distribution for 04 panchayats, (Maura Kaviyahi, Maura Jharkaha, Giddha and Raibheer) was possible from Singheswar block itself. Distribution center in all the 09 panchayats as mentioned in the district collectorate order (date unavailable) is listed below:- 
Table 09 Relief Distribution Centre Shankarpur BlockSNAffected PanchayatDistribution CentreRemarks01Maura KaviyahiPrimary School Bathan Gadha02ParsahPanchayat Bhawan; Parsah03Jirwa MadheliPrimary School; Maujma04RaibheerPrimary School; Raibheer Khap05Maura JharkahaSecondary School; Jharkaha (Ward No. 01-10)Community Building Bhathi (ward no. 11-18)As a newly created river in the floods has bisected the village into two, two distribution centers have been allocated06Rampur LahiPrimary School; Bathan Gadha07GiddhaBehrari Hasanpura(ward no 01-06)Primary School; Kajra(ward no 07-14)As a newly created river in the floods has bisected the village into two, two distribution centers have been allocated08BehrariSecondary School; Behrari09SonvarshaPanchayat Bhawan; Nishiharpur (ward no 01-06)Secondary School; Shankarpur (ward no 07-14)As a newly created river in the floods has bisected the village into two, two distribution centers have been allocated
Source: Madhepura District Collectorate The table shows that very thoughtfully in Panchayats like Maura Jharkaha, Giddha and Sonvarsha more than one distribution centers were provided as the villages were bisected into two parts by the newly created river. However, The Collectorate’s order, nowhere acknowledges the fact that Rampur Lahi had been in similar situation as these villages. This clearly indicates lack of proper flow of information. As a result, repercussions were faced by people at Rampur Lahi. Primary school at Bathan Gadha which was the assigned distribution centre, is in ward no 03. More than half the population of the village would have to cross at least one river to reach the distribution centre. This would not have been possible in the flood situation. However, what saved the government from embarrassment was that 90% of the villagers had evacuated to the MVC embankment. Reaching the distribution centre from the MVC was comparatively easier. People who suffered due to this folly were mainly those residing on the small canal embankment and in the Maharaji tola. A brief of periodic situation in Madhepura district regarding the evacuation, relief and response in Madhepura district has been extracted from official government situation reports (numbered 88/2008, 91/2008, 94/2008, 98/2008, 113/2008, and 117/2008, and released by 32-20/2008-NDM-1, Ministry of Home affairs, Disaster Management Division), is presented in the following table:- Table 10 Summary of Kosi floods evacuation relief and response in Madhepura District (30/08/08-25/09/08)27th August 200830th Aug 20082nd Sep 20086th Sep 200821st Sep 200825th Sep 200826,25,000 people from 1598 villages in 15 districtshave been affected103 relief camps 23,587 people1% T &59 cattle camps 715 animals114 Health Centre Madhepura-3107 teams (about 274 personnel) alongwith 50 boats deployed in districts of Supaul, Madhepura and Araria20 personnel and 05 boats (10 men inflatable withmotor) are being air lifted from NDRF Bn. Greater Noida.Two flood trained teams (77 personnel) are moving by road fromNDRF Bn Kolkata with 02 medical vehicles to augment the flood rescueefforts.One Army column has been deployed in Madhepura for rescue andrelief operation on 26 Aug 2008(A/N). 02 Army columns fromAllahabad and Ranchi with 34 OBM have reached today evening forrelief and rescue operation in affected areas.A total of22.30 tons of relief material was dropped and 32 passengers airlifted in12 sorties in Purnea, Araria and Madhepura districts.In Madhepura District, about 10.22 lakh people in 378 villages havebeen badly affected. 126 Panchayats have been affected severely..• About 11 blocks in the district have been partly submerged. Theworst affected areas are Alamnagar, Uda Kishanganj, Kumarkhand,Gwalpada, Bihariganj, Purani, Chawsha, Shanker, Sindgheshwar,Gamaria, Bhellur and Murliganj. About 3 to 8 feet water has beenreported in above affected areas.• 177 local boats and 25 motor boats have been pressed into servicefor relief and rescue operations.• 40 Relief Camps have been opened in the affected areas of theState in which about 27,844 people have taken shelter.• More than 95,000 people have been evacuated so far from theaffected areas.• 28 cattle camps have also been opened in the affected areas.• 40 medical camps have also been established in the affected areas.• Chura-381 Q, Gur-80 Q, Sattu-50 Q and Polythene Sheets-60584have been distributed in the affected areas so far.• Railway track at Dinapatti between Saharsa – Purnea has beensubmerged under water. As a result, the rail movement on thissection has been suspended.• Vehicular movement on National Highway between Kumarghat-Murlighat has also been suspended due to submergence of water.In Madhepura District, about 10.22 lakh people in 378 villages havebeen badly affected. 126 Panchayats have been affected severely..• About 11 blocks in the district have been partly submerged. Theworst affected areas are Alamnagar, Uda Kishanganj, Kumarkhand,Gwalpada, Bihariganj, Purani, Chawsha, Shanker, Sindgheshwar,Gamaria, Bhellur and Murliganj.• About 1-2 feet water continued to be reported in the affectedareas.• 321 local boats and 25 motor boats have been pressed into servicefor relief and rescue operations.• 45 Relief Camps have been opened in the affected areas of theState in which about 53,000 people have taken shelter.• More than 95,000 people have been evacuated so far from theaffected areas.• 28 cattle camps opened in which about 437 cattle have beenaccommodated and 6450 cattle were given treatment.• 34 medical camps have also been established in the affected areas.• Chura-381 Q, Gur-80 Q, Sattu-50 Q and Polythene Sheets-60584have been distributed in the affected areas so far.• mWater pouches have also been distributed in the affected areas.• Railway track at Dinapatti between Saharsa – Purnea has beensubmerged under water. As a result, the rail movement on thissection has been suspended.• Vehicular movement on National Highway between Kumarghat-Murlighat has also been suspended due to submergence of water.In Madhepura District, about 11.55 lakh people in 478 villages havebeen badly affected. 130 Panchayats have been affected severely..• About 11 blocks in the district have been partly submerged. Theworst affected areas are Alamnagar, Uda Kishanganj, Kumarkhand,Gwalpada, Bihariganj, Purani, Chawsha, Shanker, Sindgheshwar,Gamaria, Bhellur and Murliganj.• About 1-2 feet water continued to be reported in the affectedareas.• 413 local boats and 174 motor boats have been pressed intoservice for relief and rescue operations.• 97 Relief Camps have been opened in the affected areas of theState in which about 66,728 people have taken shelter.• More than 3,10,000 people have been evacuated so far from theaffected areas.• 28 cattle camps opened in which about 437 cattle have beenaccommodated and 6250 cattle were given treatment.• 34 medical camps have also been established in the affected areas.• Chura-726 Q, Gur & Sugar -185 Q, Sattu-227 Q and PolytheneSheets-22372 have been distributed in the affected areas so far.• Water pouches have also been distributed in the affected areas.• Railway track at Dinapatti between Saharsa – Purnea has beensubmerged under water. As a result, the rail movement on thissection has been suspended.• Vehicular movement on National Highway between Kumarghat-Murlighat has also been suspended due to submergence of water.In Madhepura District, about 11.55 lakh people in 378 villages have beenbadly affected. 130 Panchayats have been affected severely.• About 11 blocks in the district have been partly submerged. The worstaffected areas are Alamnagar, Uda Kishanganj, Kumarkhand,Gwalpada, Bihariganj, Purani, Chawsha, Shankerpur,Sindgheshwar, Madhepura and Murliganj.• Flood water has been reported to be receding from the affected areas.• 418 boats have been pressed into service for relief and rescueoperations.• 74 Relief Camps have been opened in the affected areas in which about56,000 people have taken shelter.• More than 3,35,110 people have been evacuated so far from theaffected areas.• 30 cattle camps opened in which about 6061 cattle were giventreatment.• 34 medical camps and 55 mobile medical teams have also been inservice in the affected areas.In Madhepura District, about 11.55 lakh people in 378 villages have beenbadly affected. 130 Panchayats have been affected severely.• About 11 blocks in the district have been partly submerged. The worstaffected areas are Alamnagar, Uda Kishanganj, Kumarkhand,Gwalpada, Bihariganj, Purani, Chawsha, Shankerpur,Sindgheshwar, Madhepura and Murliganj.• Flood water has been reported to be receding from the affected areas.• 418 boats have been pressed into service for relief and rescueoperations.• 74 Relief Camps have been opened in the affected areas in which about56,000 people have taken shelter.• More than 3,35,110 people have been evacuated so far from theaffected areas.• 30 cattle camps opened in which about 6061 cattle were giventreatment.• 34 medical camps and 55 mobile medical teams have also been inservice in the affected areas. Source Extracted from Situation Reports Number 88/2008, 91/2008, 94/2008, 98/2008, 113/2008, and 117/2008, and released by 32-20/2008-NDM-1, Ministry of Home affairs, Disaster Management Division Two observations from the table require special mention. One, of the total affected population only 09% of the people were brought to the relief camps on 25th September 2008. A month earlier, i.e, on 27th August (Sitrep # 88/2008), only 01% of the total affected population were brought to the relief camps. Interestingly, substantially large number of people who were evacuated, could not reach to the government relief camps. According to the Sitrep No.117/2008, dated 25th September 2008, the difference was as large as 5, 81, 128 people. One of the reasons for this pattern as sighted by Hinduatan news reporter Manish and Dainik Jagran news reporter Pradeep Kumar Jha, who covered floods news in Madhepura was that the boats evacuating people would drop them to the nearest and safe location and would go back to evacuate more trapped people. This was indeed necessary to increase the number of rounds each boat made. But the civil administration did not take any further action to bring people from these locations to the government camps for relief. As a result we see a pattern like congested MVC ad-hoc settlements with scarcity of relief and government mega camps serving much less people than its actual capacity. Table 11 Accessibility to the Relief Camps27TH August 21st September 25th September 01% of the total Affected population was brought to the relief camps. Data on Evacuation is Not Available 19% were evacuated and 07 % were brought to the relief camps. 44% were evacuated and 9% were brought to the relief camps Source: Extracted from Sitrep No 88/2008,113/2008,117/2008, Ministry of Home Affairs,Disaster Management Division The Table also shows an unusual pattern of decrease in relief camps after 6th September, although number of people being evacuated increased. On 30th August, 2008, 40 relief camps provided shelter to 27,844 people of the 95000 of those evacuated. Number of camps increased to 97 on 6th September 2008, total number of people evacuated, so far were, 3,10,00. On 25th September 2008, relief camps numbered 74 only, however people who were evacuated rose to 3,35110. Army, NDRF, para military forces were the major organisations which were engaged in evacuation and relief. The Table below shows the gist of the evacuation and relief work done by these agencies. Table 12 Evacuation by Army/NDRF /Para Military Forces Source: Madhepura Collectorate The table shows that the total number of people evacuated by them till 15/09/2008 numbered 32625. If we refer back to the table number 10, till 06th September 3,100,00 people were evacuated. By 21st September 3, 35,110 people were evacuated. By this data we assume that by 15th September 3,22,550 people would have been evacuated (average mean). Of these 322550, Army, NDRF, paramilitary forces which were the most significant agencies engaged in evacuation assisted evacuation of only 33,625 people by 15th September 2008, ie, only 10.11% of the total. This suggests that 90% of the people got evacuated on their own or with the local assistance. Rampur Lahi shows similar trend were the government’s assistance reached only 1,312 people of the 8,500 severely affected villagers, ie, only 15.44%. of this 15.44% only 9.41% (800 people) were finally evacuated with the government’s assistance. Talking about relief, major relief distribution in last mile was done by Army, NDRF and paramilitary forces. An assessment of these agencies role in the last mile relief distribution has been shown in the following table: Table 13 Pattern of Relief DistributionSNRelief ItemRelief by all agencies(in Qts)Relief by Army, NDRF and Paramilitary forces(in Qts)%age of total distribution by Army, NDRF and Paramilitary forces 01Chura72659.508.1902Sugar1852.501.3503Sattu2275725.1104Total113811910.45 Source: Extracted from table # 08 and table # 09 From this we can conclude that only 10.45% (approximately) of the total relief could reach the people trapped in remote and worst hit areas. Nearly 90% of the relief distribution was done by the governmental relief camps, to which 90% did not have access (from the conclusion made earlier that 90% of people could not reach these camps). Thus, 90% of the affected people in Madhepura received only 10% of the total relief, whereas, 10% of the affected people in the district had access to 90% of the total relief. An Analysis using Distribution Network Design Apart from the analysis of data that has been done simultaneously alongwith the detailed explanation about the situation in the previous sections, this section explains the methods through which the data collected were analysed using the distribution network design of Chopra and Meindl. Factors like Response Time, Product Availability, Product Variety, Customer Experience, Returnability and Order Visibility which influence distribution network design in humanitarian logistics are examined in the context of the two camps under study. Some other factors, like preparedness, outreach, resource capacity and information flow not only makes a significant contribution to the operations for relief distribution and for the evacuation process. Considering all these, following parameters were identified to evaluate the performance of evacuation and relief:- 
Preparedness
Response Time
Outreach
Resource Capacity
Product Variety
Customer Experience
Returnability
Order Visibility
Information Flow
Coordination
Relief has been classified into Relief at Singheshwar Mega Camps and Relief on MVC ad-hoc settlement to observe the differences in distribution at government established camps and the distribution in the Last mile. The field data relating to these parameters are arranged accordingly in table # 11, under the heading of ‘Summary of Findings and Supporting Evidences’. On the basis of the evidence from Table 14 Summary of Findings and Supporting EvidencesSNEvacuationReliefParametersSingheshwar Mega Camp (10/09/08-21/12/08)MVC ad-hoc Settlement (20/08/08-till date)FindingEvidencesFindingEvidencesFindingEvidences01PreparednessPoorLack of community based disaster preparedness. (Group Discussion ward no 5,6 & 9)Boats were procured from Khagaria, Navgachhia, Ganga Belt and Orissa. It took atleast one week to get these boats.Disaster Management Division’s Daily Flood report on 28/08/10 shows authorities’ unawareness regarding Government’s boats deployed for Relief and evacuation.construction of Bailey Bridge at Maujma than a month. PoorDue to lack of foresightedness and prompt response, the establishment of camp was delayed by atleast 10 days. Madhepura was shut down from 29/08/08 to 06/08/08. The government missed on opportunity of establishing the Camp before 29th. Respondent Manish, P.K. Jha and Bharat Prasad. Station records register dated 31/08/08-05/09/08PoorRefer to Explanation on Page no 91-9602Response TimePoorGovernment’s Response arrived after 08 days. 90% of the people have evacuated by then on their own. (Refer to explanation at page no. 06 based on the transcript of all the respondents)GoodRefer to the interview of Naval Kishore Yadav, and Respondents transcriptsPoorFood shortage for first one month. Things improved after food started coming in from Morkahi camp. Sanjay Kumar Bharti and others. Refer to Explanation on Page no 91-96 03Outreach9.41%90% of the people got evacuated on their own or with the local assistance.(Refer to explanation at page no. 108 )Poor90% of the affected people in Madhepura received only 10% of the total relief, whereas, 10% of the affected people in the district had access to 90% of the total relief. (Refer to explanation at page no. 108)Poor90% of the affected people in Madhepura received only 10% of the total relief, whereas, 10% of the affected people in the district had access to 90% of the total relief. (Refer to explanation at page no. 108 )04Resource CapacityInadequate177 Boats were deployed for evacuation. Capacity of the boats was also limited. Out of the 15.44% the people to whom, help for evacuation arrived only 9.41% could be finally evacuated. (Refer to explanation on Page no 108)Very GoodCamp had more than double the capacity of what it served in the floods. (Refer to Interview of Naval Kishore Yadav and Respondents from SM Camp)Poor10.45% of the total relief could be distributed in the last mile region. (Refer to table no 13 & explanation on Page no 108 )05Product AvailabilityNANAVery Good(Refer to Interview of Naval Kishore Yadav and Respondents from SM Camp) Explanation on Page no. 76-79PoorRespondents from MVC, Interview of Naval Kishore Yadav, Manish, & PK Jha Refer to Explanation on Page no06Product VarietyNANAVery Good(Refer to Interview of Naval Kishore Yadav and Respondents from SM Camp) Explanation on Page no. 76-79PoorRespondents from MVC, Interview of Naval Kishore Yadav, Manish, & PK Jha Refer to Explanation on Page no07Beneficiaries SatisfactionPoorAll the respondents from MVC and SMCVery GoodAll the respondents except, Pawan Kumar Yadav whose daughter, Asha Kumari died in the Camp due to Doctor’s Negligence. When asked about other factors in the Camp he said he was satisfied. (Refer to explanation at page no.76-79)PoorRespondents from MVC, Refer to Explanation on Page no 95 and 9608VisibilityPoorUncertainties regarding government’s help led to evacuation on their own (Refer to explanation at page no.65-73)Very Good(Refer to explanation at page no.76-79)NANA09ReturnabilityNANANANAPoorInterview of Bharat Prasad Station ManagerApplication No 189 Dated 25/10/08 to collectorateReply from collectorateBP/01/11/08 Dated 12/11/0810Information FlowPoorVery Good(Refer to explanation at page no.76-79)PoorDistrict collectorate order on allocation of distribution centre. Refer to table 09 and explanation on page no 87-89 and 92)11Co-ordinationPoorVery Good(Refer to explanation at page no.76-79)PoorRefer to Table # and explanation on page no from the field situations that existed, conclusive remarks indicating the performance of each parameters are made. In the subsequent sections, each of these parameters are separately assessed. Please refer to the next page. 
Preparedness: The PRAs and subsequent group discussions that were conducted initially at ward no. 01 and later in ward no 02, 03, 05, 09, and 12 show that a lack preparedness to deal with flood of this magnitude at the community level. The absence of risk perception led to delayed evacuation. As a result, the impact of the floods on the villagers was magnified. The case study of Nunulal Sardar brings out the point of lack of preparedness even more clearly. There was not even a single boat available in the village or nearby place which could be used for evacuation. This forced the people to come up with some innovative methods to prepare indigenous boats which although assisted in just in time evacuation for most of the villagers, it was not capable of evacuating all of them, particularly those trapped in Maharaji Tola.
Preparedness at Government’s end also seemed inadequate. Respondents say that by the time Government’s aid arrived most of the people had evacuated through self help. Those still trapped, eagerly awaited government’s assistance which came in the village after 08 days. (according to all the 07 respondents interviewed personally at Maharaji Tola and as per the group discussion which was conducted in Maharaji Tola,) The Madhepura Collectorate’s order on relief strategy and allocation of distribution centre released by the Disaster Management Division states that until construction of bailey bridge at Maujma the relief will be distributed by boats. The relief distribution by boats continued even after 45 days of the flood in the region. The delay in construction of the much needed bridge reflects government non preparedness in this field as well. The government even did not have the stock of essential things like boats for example, which were procured from Khagaria, Navgachhia, Ganga belt and Orissa. The Daily Report dated 28/08/08 issued by the Collectorate is silent about the number of government boats that were engaged in relief and evacuation.
Response Time: In all the group discussions and through all the respondents interviewed in the village, one thing that emerged out as a major concern was delay in external help. Respondents who were trapped in Maharaji Tola says that the government’s help arrived only after 08 days of the flood. Villagers were lucky that the breach of MVC embankment at two places in Madheli had led to the substantial decrease in level of water. Otherwise, the impact of delayed response time would have been visible through increase in loss of lives and human sufferings.
Outreach: By the time the government’s help arrived in Rampur Lahi, most of the people from the village (ward no 03 to 12), except for those who were in Maharaji Tola and those who were on the east of Badiyahi Dhar and could not afford to pay for their evacuation, have evacuated on their own. Quoting from the explanation on page number 109. “The table number 10 shows that the total number of people evacuated by them till 15/09/2008 numbered 32625. If we refer back to the table number 08 we see that till 06th September 3,100,00 people were evacuated. By 21st September 3, 35,110 people were evacuated. By this data we assume that by 15th September 322550 people would have been evacuated (average mean). Of these 322550, Army, NDRF, Paramilitary forces which were the most significant agencies engaged in evacuation assisted evacuation of only 33625 people by 15th September 2008, ie, only 10.11% of the total. This suggests that 90% of the people got evacuated on their own or with the local assistance. Rampur Lahi shows similar trend were the government’s assistance reached only to 1312 people of the 8500 severely affected villagers, ie, only 15.44%. of this 15.44% only 9.41% (800 people) were finally evacuated with the government’s assistance.”
The explanation above has been summed up in the following table:-
Table 15 Pattern of evacuationSNo.PlaceTotal People evacuatedTotal People evacuated by NDRF, Army and Paramilitary forces%age of people evacuated by forces01Madhepura(District)3225503362510.1102Rampur Lahi85008009.41
Source: Extracted from table 10and from outcome of group discussions
. 
Resource Capacity: As mentioned earlier preparedness of the government was not sufficient enough to provide timely relief and evacuation. The district administration reacted to the Kosi Floods as it struck the region suddenly with whatever little resources it had in hand. Much of the time was wasted in procuring the resources from outside. This has also led to increase in response time. As a result, the evacuation and relief process gained its peak after the critical time period was over. The trend is substantiated by the availability of boats for relief and rescue on different dates as shown in the table below:-
Table 16 Number of Boats commissioned for Relief and RescueSN19/08/0827/08/0830/08/0802/09/0806/09/08Local BoatsMotor BoatsLocal BoatsMotor BoatsLocal BoatsMotor BoatsLocal BoatsMotor BoatsLocal BoatsMotor Boats02NANA50NA1772532125413174 
Source: Source: Extracted from Sitrep No 88/2008, 91/2008, 94/2008, 98/2008; Ministry of Home Affairs,Disaster Management Division
Out of 1,312 people trapped in Rampur Lahi, only 800 people could be finally evacuated. The reason for this was that not all of them could be accommodated in the boats which had limited capacity.
Even the resources available for relief distribution in the last mile were not sufficient. To Quote from the section Government’s Strategy for Relief and Response after the Floods, “Talking about relief, major relief distribution in last mile was done by Army, NDRF and Paramilitary forces. An assessment of these agencies role in the last mile relief distribution has been shown in the following table: Table 17 Pattern of Relief DistributionSNRelief ItemRelief by all agencies(in Qts)Relief by Army, NDRF and Paramilitary forces(in Qts)%age of total distribution by Army, NDRF and Paramilitary forces 01Chura72659.508.1902Sugar1852.501.3503Sattu2275725.1104Total113811910.45 Source: Extracted from table 08 and table 09 From this we can conclude that only 10.45% (approximately) of the total relief could reach the people trapped in remote and worst hit areas. Nearly 90% of the relief distribution was done by the governmental relief camps, to which 90% did not have access (from the conclusion made earlier that 90% of people could not reach these camps). 
Hence we can say that, 90% of the affected people in Madhepura received only 10% of the total relief, whereas, 10% of the affected people in the district had access to 90% of the total relief.” Thus, the resource capacity was grossly inadequate to respond even to the most urgent needs of the people.

Product Availability: The details of the Singheshwar camp and MVC adhoc settlement, which is explained at length in earlier sections suggests that product availability in Singheshwar Mega Camp was very good, whereas, in the MVC ad-hoc settlement, it was grossly inadequate.
Product Variety: The details of the Singheshwar camp and MVC adhoc settlement, which is explained at length in earlier sections suggests that product variety in Singheshwar Mega Camp was very good, whereas, in the MVC ad-hoc settlement, it was grossly inadequate.
Customer Experience: Those who stayed in Singheshwar Mega Camp, were generally happy with the services that they received in the camp. Only one respondent, Pawan Yadav from Maharaji Tola; Rampur Lahi was furious about the medical services in the camp. He had lost his daughter, Asha Kumari, due to negligence of the doctor in service. However, he was satisfied with all the other facilities that were made available in the camp.
Respondents who stayed on MVC, were not at all satisfied with the relief services. A detailed explanation has been provided in the section “the MVC Camp” and the subsection “excerpts from people’s Interview” also highlights these issues.
Returnability: As discussed earlier in the section on ‘Distribution Network Designs,’ the returnability factor has significant role to play in easing the pressure from the infrastructure for smooth flow of goods. The feasibility of returnability in humanitarian logistics is highly debatable as it involves huge costs and does not serve the immediate objective of the organisation In Madhepura, as reported by station manager Mr. Bharat Prasad, on 05/06/2010, 17 consignments of relief goods lay unclaimed in the railway parcel godown. Application No 189, dated 25/10/2008 forwarded by the station manager to the Collectorate, inquires about the reasons for not claiming the consignments. In a reply to the letter, Deputy Development Commissioner, Madhepura in his letter (numbered BP/01/11/08; dated 12/11/2008) have said that as the packaging and matter inside the consignment appears to be unfit for distribution, it is not claimed by the Collectorate. Unclear over the authority to dispose the unclaimed consignments, these packages were still kept in railway godowns even after 18 months of the incident. The incident shows bad returnability of relief goods which leads to additional pressure on the existing infrastructure in humanitarian logistics.
Visibility: The visibility about the services like time of arrival of mobile medical team etc was not good on MVC. In comparision in Singheshwar Mega Camp, the situation was much better as compared to the previous. (Please refer to Sections titled ‘The Singheshwar Camp’ and ‘The MVC Camp’ for more details on situations that reflects the state of visibility in the two camps.)
Information Flow: To Quote from the section Government’s Strategy for Relief and Response after the Floods, “From the above information (Table # 07, Relief Distribution Centre in Shankarpur) it can be seen that in Panchayats like Maura Jharkaha, Giddha and Sonvarsha there were more than one distribution centers as the villages were bisected into two parts by the newly created river. However, The Collectorate’s order, nowhere acknowledges the fact that Rampur Lahi had been in similar situation as these villages. This clearly indicates lack of proper flow of information. As a result, people at Rampur Lahi suffered. The school at Bathan Gadha which was the assigned distribution centre, is in ward no 03. More than half of the population in the village would have to cross at least one river to reach the distribution centre. This would not have been possible in the flood situation. However, what saved the government from embarrassment was that 90% of the villagers had evacuated to the MVC embankment. Reaching the distribution centre from the MVC was comparatively easier. People who suffered due to this folly were mainly those residing on the small canal embankment and in the Maharaji tola. Thus, strategies which were formulated on the basis of wrong information base led to adoption of wrong distribution network by the authorities.
.
Coordination: Of the several agencies that worked on MVC, the district Government had information about only 04 of them. All these organisations were engaged only in providing food support to the people. The list of these agencies as presented in the section “the MVC camp” is reproduced as under:-

Table 18 Organisations Intervening in and around MVC According to the Madhepura CollectorateNGOsSNName of OrganisationPlace of InterventionKind of InterventionDate of Reporting by Collectorate01Samajik Shaichanik Vikas Kendra, JhanjharpurTapra TolaOne Meal29/09/200802Sadhu Vaswani MissionMurkahi, Parsah, Rampur LahiTwo Meals29/09/200803Anand Marg Universal Relief TeamMadheli Syphon, Kumarkhand29/09/2008Government OrganisationName of CampLocation of CampCamp InchargeDate of Reporting by Collectorate04Rampur Lahi Pul ParRampur LahiRajendra Yadav, Panchayat Sewak22/09/2008 Source: Extracted from NGOs and Flood Relief Intervention Report, Madhepura Collectorate, Dated 29/09/2008; Reports on Relief Camps, Madhepura Collectorate, Dated 22/09/2008 
Due to the limited information and various other constraints in the last mile, lack of coordination was clearly evident in Kosi response, particularly, on the MVC settlement. Lack of a coordinating agency in this area led to problems like repeated intervention or duplication of intervention. As in this case, where number of people was extremely large and resources being too scarce, the duplication did not have any significant role to play, this was also seen in the case of Leh flash flood in 2010, where in lack coordination and information flow, duplication of interventions by various organisations was experienced to such an extent that some areas where flooded with similar relief goods where as other areas where altogether left out. The table in annex 07 shows list of organisations which were engaged in various areas in Leh district. In Leh town and Sku Markha, 16 and organisations were engaged in blanket distribution whereas in Khaltse (One of the worst affected areas), Stakmo, Funjila and Tia had no organisation engaged in blanket distribution.
The Bihar government although had tried to do some disaster planning by directing operating procedure to various departments in the event of disaster. However, in time of actual disaster the coordination among these departments were not well established. This has led to visible chaos in relief and response at many places. After evaluating the distribution network on various parameters this chapter has tried to bring light the area of opportunities for the District administration and state government. The chapter also highlighted the strengths of the government in managing the chaos after the disaster. Chapter seven draws this discussion from here to analyse the performance of distribution network more elaborately and also attempts to look at possibilities which could make the distribution process in better in future disasters. CHAPTER SEVEN Towards an enhanced distribution framework Kosi Floods was a devastating disaster which caught everyone unaware, including the community and most importantly the civil administration which suddenly realized that their preparedness plans which looked so good on paper were simply not enough to handle a disaster of this magnitude. In the Flood, the total population of 33,45,545 people living in 993 villages of 412 panchayats of 35 blocks of 5 districts were affected. A total of 3, 40,742 houses were damaged and 7, 12,140 animals were affected. A total of 239 humans and 1232 animals’ lives were lost (Department of Planning and Development, Government of Bihar, 2008). From the focused study aimed towards analyzing the process of evacuation and relief distribution, the key findings which have emerged are as under:- Poor preparedness led to poor response time during Kosi floods response Resource capacity and outreach of government’s response was inadequate As a result, 90% of the people evacuated on their own and settled at MVC embankment. Lack of information flow led to adoption of wrong distribution strategies in Rampur Lahi by the civil administration. The relief got concentrated in government camps. Only 10% of it could be brought to the last mile. Government did not take timely actions to bring people from these ad-hoc settlements to the government camps. This led to increase in mortality in these ad-hoc settlements Apart from this, the performance of the distribution process which was adopted by the civil administration at Madhepura is listed in the table as under:- Table 19 Summary of findingsSN Evacuation Relief Parameters Singheshwar Mega Camp (10/09/08-21/12/08) MVC ad-hoc Settlement (20/08/08-till date) Finding Finding Finding 01 Preparedness PoorPoorPoor02 Response Time PoorGoodPoor03 Outreach 9.41%PoorPoor04 Resource Capacity InadequateVery GoodPoor05 Product Availability NAVery GoodPoor06 Product Variety NAVery GoodPoor07 Beneficiaries Satisfaction PoorVery GoodPoor08 Visibility PoorVery GoodNA09 Returnability NANAPoor10 Information Flow PoorVery GoodPoor11 Co-ordination PoorVery GoodPoor The study’s findings have been used to derive the following framework which significantly indicates the area of opportunities on which agencies involved in relief and evacuation should work upon in order to bring down the casualties. As shown in the framework, when a disaster strikes, it leads to an immediate disaster response, supplemented by humanitarian logistics. The logistical function leads to two important processes, (a) Flow of relief goods towards the affected area or the incoming demand and (b) Flow of people away from the affected area or in other words the outgoing demand. Flow of relief goods, as it gets closer to the affected area gets obstructed by the on field situations. Hence a major percentage of the relief starts getting accumulating at distribution centers like government camps which is at some distance from the affected area. From here a very small fraction of the relief is taken and delivered in the last mile. Fig 21, Theoretical Framework CONSTRAINTS DISASTER RESPONSEHUMANITARIAN LOGISTICSGAPNo Organisational SupportRecognised Relief Camps & DCs ReliefRescue & Evacuation.Ad Hoc setllementsFlow of PeopleFlow of Goods& ServicesFlow of InformationFlow of InformationFlow of Information Flow of people, on the other hand, is also blocked by several constraints that subsequently emerge from the disaster. An ad-hoc settlement is created usually at the nearest safest location people come across. The outgoing demand accumulates at these ad-hoc settlements and the incoming demands accumulate at the Government camps. As one acts as the supply for the other it is important that convergence of the two should take place at one point. This is crucial in order to avoid further human sufferings and loss of lives. As due to the constraints, bringing sufficient relief in last mile is not possible (as shown earlier, only 10.11% of relief could be delivered in the last mile in Madhepura Kosi response) efforts should be made to bring people towards the relief, ie, from the ad-hoc settlements to the government camps. This action should be considered as different from the evacuation process and should be undertaken as the evacuation process nears completion. During the evacuation the focus is to evacuate more and more people in least possible time. Hence, bring them all the way to the distribution centers may not be possible. But immediately after the evacuation is over, the civil administration should make attempts to bring them to the relief camps. In case of Rampur Lahi no organizational support was provided by the administration to bring the people from these ad-hoc settlements to the government mega camps even though the the mega camps had the capacity to accommodate them in large numbers. As a result, we see that the convergence of the outgoing demand and the incoming demand did not take place. Its impact can be seen in the huge differences in the casualties at Singheshwar Mega Camp and at MVC ad-hoc settlement. The figure below shows superimposition of the framework on the actual field situation that existed at Rampur Lahi. Although tested in the situation of floods in Madhepura, the framework requires further testing to see if it holds true in other forms of disasters. However, one key learning that should be taken well forward from here and that holds true in almost every form of disaster is that it leads to creates two different flows (demands). One is ‘the flow of Relief’ and other ‘the flow of People.’ As the relief goods and services has an obvious acceptance in categorization as demand, flow of people has still not been recognized as one of the demand factors in humanitarian logistics. Figure 22, Superimposition of Theoretical framework on the real field situation Recommendations Two key recommendations the study suggests are as follows:- 
The Humanitarian Logistics as a subject should recognize people as one of the important demands that is generated out of the conditions succeeding the disaster, and therefore, should incorporate the approach of bringing people towards the commodity alongwith the approach of bringing commodity towards the people on which it already works. The statement can be better understood by the figure below:-
Approach: Bringing Commodity to the PeopleApproach: Bringing People to the CommodityDonorsDistribution CentrePeople. Fig 23, Approaches in Humanitarian Logistics 
A distribution network design which targets increased efficiency of local donors through proper coordination should be adopted to improve relief in the last mile. The following distribution network model is thus being proposed for an improved relief distribution in the last mile by the local donors.
Fig 24 Distribution Network Design in Humaniatrian Logistics for local Donors
The design is based on an assumption that as soon as a disaster strikes a region first help arrives from agencies in local and nearby areas. However, with time the number of local agencies is superceded by external agencies. The table below shows the agencies which reported to the Madhepura collectorate by 29/08/2008 for flood relief intervention:- Table 20 NGOs and Flood Relief Intervention;District – MadhepuraDate of Reporting: 29-09-08S. NName Of NGOHead Office Name of Relief Camps/site of interventionNo. of Relief CampsRelief InterventionSamajik Shaishanik Vikas Kendra Balbhadrapur, Jhanjharpur Samajik Shaishanik Vikas Kendra Balbhadrapur, Jhanjharpur1.Tapra Tola, Rampur, Murliganj Block2.Parwa , Murliganj3.Devnarhi Santhali (Murliganj Block)03Two meals a day2.Sant Shree Asharamjee Ashram Trust, New DelhiSant Shree Asharamjee Ashram TrustBandematram Road no- 60 New DelhiArar (Gwalpara block)02Two meals a dayShahpur (Gwalpara block3.Emmanuel Hospital Association Emmanuel Hospital AssociationNehru PlaceNew DelhiBeldaur nahar, Rampur01 Cooked food (two meals a day), medical mobile team, distribution of chlorine tablets and safe drinking water campaign4. Sadhu Vaswani Mission, Pune Sadhu Vaswani Mission, Pune,MaharashtraMurkhahi Parsa, Karmania, Hiralva Jeetpur,( Shankarpur block)Gidha RampurLahi, BalwaBariyahi Madheli ( Shankarpur block)Bhajan Patti Pama Chowk on Jirwa canal (Gwalpara block)03Food support ( one meal a day)5MEDICENS SANS FRONTIERS HOLLANDMEDICENS SANS FRONTIERS HOLLANDKumarkhand Gwalpara block02Medical facilities at Belari – interior areas of Kumarkhand ; Resna – interior areas of Gwalpara6EFICOR, New DelhiEFICOR308, Mahatta Tower,B- block, Community centre, Janakpuri, New DelhiM idle School Parwa Navtol (Murliganj block)01Community kitchen ( two meals a day) , hygiene kit and sports material7JAN VIKAS SAMITI,C/O Catholic Church,SaharsaBasantpur (Shankarpur)Rannipatti ( Kumarkhand block)Ghailar ( mega camp)Ghamaria (mega camp)Bhabhani (Gamharia block)Chakla chowk (Madhepura block)02 Supplementary nutrition & medical Support 8.Bombay Urban Industrial League for Development (Build) and AGAPEBombay Urban Industrial League for Development (Build)Perwa Navtol( Muraliganj block)01Supplementary nutrition for lactating mother, pregnant women & infants9 Chetna Sagar and DiscipleshipCentreShahpur Santhal tola,GwalparaShahpur, Gwalpara01 Supplementary nutrition10Deviki Nita Kalyan Vikas Samiti, MadhepuraGovindpuri, Ward No-14, MadhepuraRampur JagahTerasi nahar (Beldaur nahar)Ghitani tolaBaghinia(Muraliganj block)04Food support 11.Anand Marg Universal Relief Team AMURT Bhawan Anand NagarBaglataPuruliaMadeli SyphonKumarkhand 01Two meals a day12Lok Bharti Sewa AshramLok Bharti Sewa Ashram,MadhepuraMega camp Singheswar 01Distribution of bleaching powder - 10 bags Source, Madhepura Collectorate; 2008 Out of the 12 NGOs which reported in the Madhepura Collectorate for providing relief interventions in the flood affected region, 06 organisations were from local and nearby regions of Bihar. Out of the 22 relief camps, 54.5% of them ie, 12 relief camps were managed by these organisations. The list only shows the NGOs which reported to the Collectorate before intervening in the region. There were several organisations, agencies and individuals which provided relief without informing the collectorate. During the initial days of intervention at Rampur Lahi, large number of these aid agencies belonged to the local region. Regional political parties, religious groups, spirited individuals and neighboring villagers were amongst the first responders who came with aid to the people at Rampur Lahi. After some time, external international agencies (Like CASA, CARITAS, WorldVisoin and UNICEF) took the lead in providing aid to the people in the village. A similar trend was seen in the Leh Flashflood in Jammu and Kashmir where in the initial period number of local agencies was more than the external agencies intervening in the affected areas of Leh (Annexture 07). The above distribution design applies to the local agencies and donors who are the first to reach the affected people with their aid and services. In this design, all the inventories are stored at donors’ and the agencies’ end. A central coordinating agency plays a key role in establishing a good information flow in order to facilitate proper relief distribution. As the goods are stored at agencies end, product availability and product variety is high. With better disaster preparedness, the product variety and availability can be further improved. The available relief goods can be appropriately distributed through good coordinating body and thus duplication in relief distribution can also be averted. This has emerged a common problem in many of the preceding disasters like the Leh Flashflood (discussed in earlier sections) and the Kosi flood. The design is intended for local agencies only, as being close to the affected area they have the capacity to respond in minimum possible time. The design, if adopted by organisations situated at a far away would lead to higher response time as the outbound distance increases. The transportation cost will also be high. The benefit of the design is that, it helps in sharing of useful information and thereby promoting unified response. It organizes the efforts of the local agencies to facilitate more equitable distribution of relief goods. Duplication of relief goods can be avoided and the neglected areas can also be identified and relief interventions can be directed to these regions in a more timely manner. A better coordination in disaster relief has earlier been achieved in some of the states in India, in previous disasters. Donor’s Network in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu Tsunami Network (Disaster Watch), Inter Agency Group Gujarat Consortium Project, Sphere Assam Group, Inter Agency Task force; Maharashtra and State Inter Agency Group; West Bengal have earlier worked towards establishment of better coordination amongst governmental and non government organisations in providing better relief interventions. With mission of addressing humanitarian needs, providing timely service delivery, ensuring access to vulnerable communities and reducing related risks of lives and livelihoods, Inter Agency Group; West Bengal was formed in May 2000. It has been since then working towards a unified response strategy. Such efforts have been done at state level and bring the established agencies working in the field of emergency response together. At a micro level, when coordination amongst local donors is aimed at, the agencies coming in would not be necessarily from the established field of disaster response. Hence, the network has to be flexible enough to include these agencies which work towards rendering help to the affected people after a disaster. The evaluation of Kosi response in 2008 has shown mixed results. Where at some places government has proved to be extremely effective with their interventions, in some areas they have shown below average efforts. The distribution of relief in the last mile could have been improved with better disaster preparedness. Lack of coordination amongst various inter-governmental departments and also amongst the NGOs was one concerning factor in the Kosi flood. Assigning ex-officio responsibilities government officers to manage disasters like this one results in doing things by trial and error methods. Inorder, to effectively manage relief distribution it is crucial to establish the coordination among the various departments. This requires more importance to be given to the disaster preparedness. In the field of Humanitarian Logistics, Madhepura District administration and state government in general has a long way to go in order to avoid the costly mistakes in a similar situation in future. APPENDIX Annex 01 A case study research to identify existing Gaps between Disaster Response and Humanitarian Logistics with reference the Kosi Flood in Bihar in 2008. Animesh Prakash Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management; Tata Institute of Social Sciences; Mumbai Questionnaire NameDesignationNawal kishore Yadav DistrictProvident fund officerMadhepuraCamp InchargeSingheshwar Mega Camp. Q.01. On What date was Singheswar Mega Camp Created.____________________________________ Q.02. What was the capacity of the camp._______________________________________________ Q.03. Did the Number of beneficiaries exceeded the capacity of the camp at any time._______________________ Q.04. Singheshwar Mega Camp served which affected areas in Madhepura district_____________________________________________________________________________ Q.05. Which was the closest Governmental Mega Camp to Rampur Lahi of Shankarpur block__________________________________________________________________________ Q.06. Did most of the villagers from Rampur Lahi who got evacuated by the army/NDRF/Local Community etc. took refuge in Singheshwar Mega Camp Yes No Q.07. Or did these villagers settled on the safer locations or points upto which they were evacuated By the Forces. Yes No Q.08. Was MVC canal embankment at madheli, the nearest safe location on which the people from Rampur Lahi settled during the first month of the flood. Yes No Q.09 Was, No. of people, from Rampur Lahi, taking refuge in MVC camp more as compared to Singheshwar Mega Camp Yes No Q.10. Was there any further operation undertaken by the government to Relocate these people from MVC to Mega Camps or other Governmental Camps. Yes No If yes please elaborate ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q.11. Total No. of people that stayed in Singheshwar Mega Camp ______________________________ Q.12 Total /Estimated No. of people who stayed on MVC embankment_________________________ Q.13. How were the registration and daily counting of refugees undertaken in the Singheshwar Mega Camp __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q.13. Was there any reported/unreported/ignored cases of people coming to the Singheshwar Mega Camp from non affected regions. Yes No Q14. Was there any spread of epidemic diseases like Diarrhoea, Cholera etc. in the Singheshwar Mega Camp. Yes No Q15. Was there any spread of epidemic diseases like Diarrhoea, Cholera etc. on the MVC embankment after the flood. Yes No Q16. How many people died of diseases and in want of medical attention following the floods in the Singheshwar Mega Camp.__________________________________________________________ Q17. Was there any death due to the spread of diseases and lack of medical facilities, following the floods on the MVC embankment._______________________________________________________________ Q18. What were the facilities that were provided in the Singheshwar Mega Camp. Food_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Shelter___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Water & Sanitation_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Medical Aid____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Other.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q.19 How & from where was the material required for the Singheshwar Mega Camp Procured._________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q.20 Where was these material (food and other goods) stored. (Warehouses.)__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q21 How were these materials transported to the Singheshwar Mega Camp.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q22. How was the relief materials distributed to the beneficiaries in the Singheshwar Mega Camp. (Any System to Maintain equitable distribution if followed)_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q23. What were the facilities that were provided on the MVC embankment. Food_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Shelter___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Water & Sanitation_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Medical Aid_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Other.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q.24 How & from where was the material required for the MVC embankment camp Procured.______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q.20 Where was these material (food and other goods) stored. (Warehouses.)__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q21 How were these materials transported to the MVC embankment camp .________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Q22. How was the relief materials distributed to the beneficiaries in the MVC embankment camp. (Any System to Maintain equitable distribution if followed)_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ In the comparative chart below please tick the coloumn ( ) with better facilities leave the other column blank. If the camp with poorer facilities maintained the minimum standards please tick yes or else NO. CategoryCampDid Camp with poorer facilities maintained the Minimum Standards as Directed by sphere standardsReasons for the poor facilitySingheshwar Mega CampMVC embankment campYesNoFoodShelterWater & SanitationMedical AidEpidemic ControlOther Date Place Signature Annex 02 A case study research to identify existing Gaps between Disaster Response and Humanitarian Logistics with reference the Kosi Flood in Bihar in 2008. Animesh Prakash Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management; Tata Institute of Social Sciences; Mumbai Questionnaire NameAddressCampVillage: Rampur LahiWard No.________________Shankarpur Block;District: Madhepura; Bihar.Singheshwar Mega Camp. 
On what date, Inundation of village began____________________________________________
When did you evacuate___________________________________________________________
How where you evacuated_________________________________________________________
When did the government help arrived_______________________________________________
Which were the safer places where you stayed before arriving to the Singheshwar mega camp ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
How long did you stay at these places_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
How long did you stay in the Singheshwar Mega Camp _________________________________
On a scale of 1 to 10 if you have to rank these safer places and the Singheshwar camp on the basis of facilities available, how much would you assign to the both. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Did the army dropped people to nearby higher places or did they take them till the government established camps. ______________________________________________________________________________
Was the army/Government/NDRF facilities capable of timely evacuating all the trapped villagers to the governmental camps beyond which were beyond a safer location________________________________________________________________________
How did you reach the Singheshwar Mega Camp________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Was there any attempt made by the government to relocate people having settled at safer locations like MVC to the Singheshwar Mega Camp(After evacuation) ______________________________________________________________________________
What where the facilities available at the Safer zones:-Food____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Water & Sanitation____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Medical Aid ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Shelter_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Other____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What where the facilities available at the Singheshwar Mega Camp:-Food____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Medical Aid ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Shelter_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Other____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
14 Did you witness any deaths in safer zones where you lived prior to your shifting to the Mega camp, due to want of basic commodities like food, potable water, medical facilities etc. ______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
15 Did you witness any deaths in the Singheswar mega camp, due to similar reasons____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
16 How was the camp better equipped in controlling these situations as compared to the your previous place of refuge.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Annex 03
A case study research to identify existing Gaps between Disaster Response and Humanitarian Logistics with reference the Kosi Flood in Bihar in 2008. Animesh Prakash Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management; Tata Institute of Social Sciences; Mumbai Questionnaire NameAddressCampVillage: Rampur LahiWard No.________________Shankarpur Block;District: Madhepura; Bihar.MVC Camp. 
On what date, Inundation of village began____________________________________________
When did you evacuate___________________________________________________________
How where you evacuated_________________________________________________________
When did the government help arrived_______________________________________________
Which were the safer places where you stayed before arriving to the MVC camp ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
How long did you stay at these places_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
How long did you Stay at MVC camp ________________________________________________
Did the army dropped people to nearby higher places or did they take them till the government established camps. ______________________________________________________________________________
What Prevented you to take refuge in singheshwar mega camp________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Was the army/Government/NDRF facilities capable of timely evacuating all the trapped villagers to the governmental camps beyond which were beyond a safer location________________________________________________________________________
Was there any attempt made by the government to relocate people having settled at safer locations like MVC to the Singheshwar Mega Camp(After evacuation) ______________________________________________________________________________
What where the facilities available at the MVC camp:-Food____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Medical Aid ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Shelter_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Other____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
14 when did Diseases leading to deaths in the camps began ______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
15 Did the incapacity of these camps led to further deaths_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
16 which organizations reached these camps with relief ________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
17 What difficulties where faced by these organization in reaching the MVC camp and distributing relief ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
18 Was the relief goods brought by these organizations sufficient enough to meet the basic requirement of the people ________________________________________________________
19 What relief materials distributed in the camp________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
20 Other Information __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Annex 04 Case studies compiled during data collectionSNName of the Case01Nunu Lal Sardar: Use of indeginous knowledge for relief and rescue.02Chhedi Yadav: Assistance from economically better off communities in immediate relief.03Pramod Kumar Yadav: Factors influencing choices of people during evacuation.04Disaster and disability: Cases of more than one disabled persons in a family.05The Seven Sardar families: Loopholes in Government’s response to reach the extremely vulnerable people during and after the disaster.06Surendar Yadav on how efficiently the singheshwar mega camp was run. 07Madhepura Parcel Office: Exposing loopholes in Relief Chain.08Mohd. Ghiyasuddin: Religion in relief camps. Annex 05 List of persons who were interviewed and who could not be interviewed during the process are as follows:- List of people interviewed during data collection. S.N.NameAddressCampComments01Surendra YadavVillage Rampur LahiWard No 12, Maharaji TolaShankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.Singheshwar Mega CampSatyam Kumar son of surrender Yadav was born in Singheswar Mega Camp. He was the last person to leave the camp.02Pawan YadavVillage Rampur LahiWard No 12, Maharaji TolaShankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.Singheshwar Mega CampHer Daughter died in Singheshwar Mega Camp, due to negligence of doctor.03Mohammad GhiyasuddinVillage Rampur LahiWard No 12, Maharaji TolaShankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.Singheshwar Mega CampBelonged from the minority community. He is extremely satisfied with way actions taken by the authorities to respect and religious practices in the camp.04Mohammad YusufVillage Rampur LahiWard No 12, Maharaji TolaShankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.Singheshwar Mega Camp05Gajendra YadavVillage Rampur LahiWard No 12, Maharaji TolaShankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.Singheshwar Mega Camp06Virendra YadavVillage Rampur LahiWard No 12, Maharaji TolaShankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.Singheshwar Mega Camp07Anmol YadavVillage Rampur LahiWard No 12, Maharaji TolaShankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.Singheshwar Mega Camp08Mahendra YadavVillage Rampur LahiWard No 12, Maharaji TolaShankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.MVC CampInspite of the fact that the army boats evacuated people from Maharaji Tola, He ended up in the MVC camp, as he could not be accommodated on boat. Later he wished to stay on MVC due to the security of his house.09Amit KumarVillage Rampur LahiWard No 09Shankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.MVC CampHis father Gulabi Rishidev died on MVC camp10Brahm DevVillage Rampur LahiWard No 06Shankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.MVC CampHis Daughter Reshma died on MVC11Chhoti DeviVillage Rampur LahiWard No 02, Shankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.MVC CampShe came to the camp in greed of relief materials and lives on the embankment even after two years of the flood. Her ward was not much affected by the flood.12Ramu RishidevChikni ManganjMVC CampHe was forced to leave the camp near his village so he came on MVC. He still lives on the MVC embankment and has got himself enrolled in the voter’s list as a resident of Rampur lahi, ward no 04.13Sanjay Kr. BhartiVillage Rampur LahiWard No 09Shankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.MVC CampHis uncle died on MVC.14Sadanand YadavVillage Rampur LahiWard No 04Shankarpur, Madhepura, Bihar.MVC CampHer wife Sahila Devi delivered a baby on a bamboo platform without any medical attention. Fortunately both mother and child survived. Annex 06 List of officials interviewed S.N.Name DesignationType of interviewComment01Nawal Kishore YadavDistrict Provident Fund Officer, Madhepura & Singheshwar Mega Camp inchargeStructuredHe was the incharge of singheshwer mega camp and received appreciation and award for exceptional service during Kosi Relief.02SunilDistrict Information Officer, MadhepuraNon StructuredHe was responsible for managing and dissemination of information during the Kosi Flood. He was also awarded by the government for his exceptional services in Kosi relief work. 03Manish Sahay VermaHindustan, Madhepura---------do---------He worked as a correspondent and covered MVC camp and other areas during the flood.04Lalit DubeyETV Correspondent---------do---------Covered news on post kosi flood relief and rehabilitation.05Pradeep Kumar JhaDainik Jagran, Madhepura---------do---------Covered news on Kosi floods for dainik jagran06Bharat PrasadStation manager, Madhepura railway stationStructuredWorks as station manager in Madhepura since the flood. Witnessed loopholes in humanitarian logistics which resulted into wastage of relif materials Annex 07 List of People who could not be interviewed S.NName DesignationReason01Capt. Sachin RawatCaptain, Indian Army, CME, PuneCould not be contacted02Sunil JhaTreasurer DM FundTransferred.03Mahendra BharatiTransportation wingTransferred.04Ateesh ChandraDMTransferred.05Satyaprakash SharmaBDO, ShankarpurTransferred. Annex 07 Table Relief Received so far (outcome of Gram Sabhas):What?By Whom?PhyangSheyIgooNeyTiaSkurbuchanAchinathangDomkharBasgoTimisgamTakmachikNimooTaruUmlaLeh TownChoglamsar AChoglamsar BUpshiKyungyamMeeruGyaLehdhoSkendiyangKhaltsiStakmoWanlaUrsiFanjilaHanu GongmaHanu YokmaDha- BeemaSaspotseySkyu- MarkhaChiling SumdhaBlankets/ Bedding Govt.----------------------- DSS-----------------------------TISS---------------------------------Company?--------------------------------Junu Tsogspa--------------------------------SHO Khaltse--------------------------------BJP--------------------------SDM Khaltse---------------------------------LBA------------------Govt employees, Army-----------------------------RDD-------------------------------Guru RD-------------------------------B S U------------------------------LNP/MSF-------------------------LPT-----------------------------Ama Tsogspa------------------------------IFBYL-------------------------------WWF-------------------------------FRL----------------------------Radio station--------------------------------PRAGYA-----------------------------AMI----------------------------------Delhi--------------------------------KASA---------------------------------Stok Phandey Tsogspa--------------------------------LEHO--------------------------------RDY/ OXFAM--------------------------------GREF---------------------------------Ram Singh----------------------------------Zangskar Tsogspa---------------------------------CII Panjab-------------------------------REMI--------------------------------Korea Monastery--------------------------------Skarmapa--------------------------------India Medical -------------------------------Total040301000605040402050101050216030605020402010000060102000603010103 Source: TATA-LAHDC References 
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http://www.ladakhfloodorg

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