An Assessment of Success and Failures of Resettlement in Disasters ; Special References to ‘‘Oshinton Estate” in Bulathsinhala DS Division

Abstract

A disaster is the occurrence of an extreme hazard event that impacts on vulnerable communities causing substantial damage, disruption and possible casualties, and leaving the affected communities unable to function normally without outside assistance. In Sri Lankan context Flood and landslide are caused to significant impact in the community who are living the hazard prone areas. According to DS division reports has shown few of GN Divisions of Bulathsinhala DSD are vulnerable to the disasters. The main objective is to assess of success and failures of the resettlement project in “Ossington estate”. Primary data were collected through the Semi structured interviews, questionnaire survey and field observation. Gramanildari Reports and reliable research papers were selected as a secondary data source. Data were analyzed using mixed method. According to the results 100 households have been constructed since 2018 but 85 families are recently living this estate because they haven’t any income sources within the new area yet because they had to leave their previous villages. Their income sources are basically dependent on the primary activities due to that their income sources are lost. That is caused to bring the negative consequences and have developed the different type of social problems within the household. Householders (95%) were not satisfied about the new settlement because they were not able to lead their livelihood with limited space within the 10 perches. Major disturbance of the resettlement project hasn’t proper mechanism for distributing drinking water sources within the estate due to this matter community are facing great difficulties and they have to spend an extra income for buying the water and there is no proper mechanism to distribute the postal letters within the village. Already they have categorized as disaster vulnerable people although, recent situation isn’t change as well community are socially isolated yet because there are no harmony and cooperation because all of them are coming from different GN divisions and they are leading their lives as differently. Even though have established resettlement project for community wellbeing have arisen different significant issues. Therefore, government or any responsible agencies should pay their attention to build up the living states of the community.