Report

Irula Livelihood Development Project-

Pazahaverkadu

Tamil Nadu

2016-17

Irula Livelihood Development Project- Pazahaverkadu

Pazhaverkadu in Thiruvallur district is 60 kms from Chennai. It consists of about 30 fisherman villages;

most of them belong to the Irula Tribe. Be it Tsunami or be it the recent Chennai flood, this area gets

vastly affected as it is near the sea shore. Dependent on the forest, they gathered and sold honey,

beeswax and firewood to villagers in exchange for village products, and relied on the forest for food,

comprising largely of vegetation and wild animals.

They are ranked at the very bottom of the social strata. Driven out of their forest homes they had no land,

no steady means of livelihood. Virtually cut off from the mainstream of society, mostly living far away

from the other communities. The Irulas, tribals who were once displaced from their forest homes and

traditional occupations, have now lost their settlements and have come into coastal villages to establish

their livelihood. When they were forced out of their forest homes, they found they had little or no skills

and could only labour in rice mills or as inland fishermen. This leaves them with scarcely any earnings,

absolutely no savings, and the ability to just about scrape together the day's meal.

CII’s Flood Relief and Rehab taskforce formed, decided to extend support to the community and

accordingly CII Secretariat started work with need assessment and decided that out of the 30 villages the

following 5 villages faced severe livelihood challenges due to the floods and required immediate

assistance.

Villages Covered under the Project

• Manelloor

• Edakandigai

• Ellarmedu

• Pondhavakkam

• Kamaraj Nagar

Objective of the Project

This Project aims at providing support to people from Irula community in the flood affected

areas to establish their livelihood options and rebuild assets

Keeping in mind the distance the members of the community travel for selling their catch, the

rentals they spend per day on transportation, the poor quality of nets they use, we had come

up with the following recommendations to be provided for the community to help them with

their livelihood:

• Fishing Nets Distribution to individual families

• Boats Distribution to the area with priority

• Bicycle distribution to individual families

After careful scrutinizing and analysis of immediate requirement the following has been

finalized

Sl No Village No Families

required Net

No of Finishing

Boat Required

No of Cycles

required

1 Manelloor 100 0 100

2 Edakandigai 24 0 24

3 Ellarmedu 26 0 26

4 Pondhavakkam 41 0 41

5 Kamaraj Nagar 78 4 78

Total 269 4 269

Livelihood Support for the Community

Distribution Details

The distribution function was organised on the 25th

of February 2017 in the presence of the

District Sub-collector Mr V P Thandapani IAS, Mr E T Samsun IPS – S.P. of Thiruvallur District,

Ms Archana Kalyani IFS – Director, Tribal Welfare Department, few key stakeholders and the

community at Gummudipoondi Taluk, Thiruvallur.

This was just a first step taken towards sorting the issues of the tribal people. The district

officials were speeding their steps to sort out their issues and requested the industry body’s

support to offer more efficient and effective solutions to the community with regard to training,

job placement

Paper clipping on the event

Deccan Chronicle

Chennai edition

Dates 25.02.2017 The Hindu

Chennai edition

Dates 26.02.2017