it was february 3 2001 but no substantial reconstruction has begun sir please help us try to understand our plight the homeless remain unattended yet the town planners talk of wide roads and gardens says shantikumar m thakkar retired government officer and member of the bhuj senior citizens council ahmedabad urban development authority and ahmedabad municipal corporation have okayed only 19 of the 85 rebuilding plans sources in the urban development ud department at gandhinagar reveal that macro outlines for rebuilding kutch have been laid out in the development plan dp but microlevel planning is yet to be completed our children starve and sleep out in the open the area development authorities are now working on a fourth plan and nobody knows if this will be the final one anjar and bhuj have in fact come out with three microdevelopment plans all of which were shelved shift focus to ahmedabad and the situation is only marginally better purushottam thakkar lay in front of the bhuj collectorate office daring the policemen to open fire while imploring the bureaucrats for relief thousands will die of hunger sir please give us some foodgrain these offer little protection from the scorching summer heat and a freezing winter kutchis still live in hungami awas or temporary shelters made of corrugated sheets gunny bags or tarpaulin cloth sketches and blueprints of plans are shown which are incomprehensible little has changed in urban kutch since that day of devastation jenaben ibrahim 80 has been living in a shabby temporary shelter in the gangaba middle school ground of bhuj for a year now people still complain of government apathy of inhuman conditions of little help from the local urban development authorities bhujahmedabad says rb dave chief executive authority of bhuj area development authority bada work is progressing on a war footing but town planning is a complicated exercise and will take some time says shrikant shah director of home losers service association of ahmedabad holsaa the governments resolution to speed up reconstruction notwithstanding rebuilding activity for 66 high and low rise apartments still hang fire that and the scores of haphazardlybuilt temporary shelters with naked electric wires running all over most of the homeless have yet to get the nod for rebuilding coughing uncontrollably ibrahim and her family of nine are still dreaming of rebuilding her home in hanuman sheri bhuj in bhuj alone 13000 residential quarters and commercial buildings have collapsed at the kutch towns of bhuj bhachau anjar and rapar the only visible difference is the partial removal of tonnes of debris the past year has reduced ibrahim to a housemaid it is january 10 2002 fed up over the delay residents describe tp as time pass in anjar a total of 5800 houses crumbled to pieces killing 2250 and maiming countless others absence of new townplanning tp guidelines has emerged as the major villain in kutch though the situation is better in the countryside where the villages are seeing a flurry of construction activity