Sir, I have been listening attentively to debate so far and I have to say that for me this is not a theoretical matter or second hand issue. I was there when the cyclone started.

 I was in Thiruvananthapuram, the night of the 29th and the 30th . (s2/1425/snb-ind) I actually went out to the coastal area in the morning of the 30th . There were extremely heavy rains and howling winds. In fact, we were expecting the next day the visit of our party leader Shri Rahul Gandhi ji. I remember filming on my phone the posters and hoardings put up for him fluttering, flying about in the breeze and the tents that had been constructed for him for his function was already being ripped apart by the winds. I said that this function is not going to happen; this is going to get worse. Having seen it from that point I can assure you that what developed after that was a matter of intense personal concern because over the next few days I had the mortification, not just of watching it unfold and helping with some of the coordination of the response, including calling Shrimati Nirmala Sitharaman at home and pulling her out and she was extremely helpful and responsive, calling the Coast Guard officials myself.

 Apart from all of that there is also the fact that I then had to go to the homes of those who were bereaved, either who had lost people certainly or whose people were missing, whose loved ones were missing. There is really something terribly sobering to really is a horrendous human tragedy that we in Parliament truly grasp and understand the nature of. I would like to say with deep respect to the Home Minister, who is here for us today, that there is no substitute for a serious enquiry into what happened. I have had the privilege of calling on the hon. Prime Minister both alone and subsequently with MPs from Kerala. When I met him alone I did say that it was extremely important that an enquiry be conducted so that we know exactly what happened.

Take the debate that we had a little earlier today on the warning issues. Both sides, as you know, were shouting at each other here and I do not want to enter into that. What I do want to say is that I have looked into this with some detail. I have the Indian Meteorological Department official’s cyclone warning document -- The Standard Operating Procedures of the Indian Meteorological Department. According to that there are four stages. There is a pre-cyclone watch which would be for early potential disturbances; there is a cyclone alert which is supposed to be 48 hours before a cyclone; there is a cyclone warning 24 hours before and then post landfall outlook until the disturbances subside. Now, what have we got here? I have looked at the actual bulletins received in Kerala.

 I can tell you that there is only reference to a depression and deep depression. I have actually got the exact wordings. I do not want to waste the time of this House. I have conveyed this to the hon. Prime Minister also. At 11.50 am on 29th it says that there is depression over South-West in Bay of Bengal of Sri Lankan Coast; 30th at 5.30 am, it says deep 380 depression over the Comorin area, that is Kanyakumari area and neighbourhood; at 8.30 am on 30th it still says deep depression over Comorin area and cyclone alert for Lakshadweep islands and it is only at 12 noon on 30th it says that it is the cyclonic storm Ockhi. (t2/1430/rbn/vb) By that time, the cyclone had hit.

People had gone out to see as late as the previous night. May be those who had gone out two or three days earlier could not have been saved. The sad thing is, people who went out literally until such time as the cyclone hit could not be saved. To my mind, there is something to be looked at as how we allowed this to happen, how could precious human lives have been lost. I leave the question of blame game between the IMD and the State Meteorological Department to them. I think the Central Government, as a neutral player, should definitely conduct an inquiry into this issue. But this is not the only issue. There is very seriously the question of protocols and the equipment for search and rescue.

I do not claim to be objective or neutral. I am basing myself on the complaints of the fisher people and the people in the fishing villages who have spoken to me. They say, for example, that on the 29th night, when they first got the stress signals from some of their fishermen, the Coast Guards were unwilling to go out. They also claim – the Coast Guard may not confirm this and we need to know what the truth is – that when the Coast Guard did go out on 30th they could find nobody. In fact, I believe in the entire day they only found one person. That was unacceptable when there were hundreds or people out in peril  at that time. They also pointed out that when the Navy got involved – I am very pleased that the Defence Ministry responded as soon as an appeal was made to them – they did not know where to look. The Coast Guard has a territorial limit of 12 nautical miles.

They cannot go beyond that. But the Navy can go much farther. In fact, they can go as far as they wish. But they did not know where to look. According to fisher people, for four days no one agreed to take the local people on-board the ships to actually find them. When the Navy went out, one of the people who went on board the Navy ship told me that they found a body floating, but the Navy said, ‘We cannot take this body because we have no facilities to keep the body on board. We not have no mobile ice boxes; we have no deep freeze facilities, etc. So, we cannot take the body’. This was a horrifying thing to the fisher people when families are waiting desperately for news of what happened to their loved ones. I immediately called the Defence Minister from the village as soon as this news reached me. The Navy issued a statement saying that they have not refused to pick up anybody, but in the same statement they said that they are still in the process of acquiring mobile mortuaries. I think one can draw a very clear inference. They did not have it and the fishermen have no reason to tell a lie to me.

So, these are very serious issues that also need to be the subject of a serious inquiry. The third question is about the infrastructure. That also needs to be looked at. Prof. Saugata Roy very rightly mentioned about the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and the satellite. It is not just the question of satellite. The Central Government has spent Rs. 20 crore on a Doppler radar system, that is supposed to warn about cyclones. What happened to that? Did it work or did it not work? If it worked, where did the information go? Who is responsible for neglecting the information? I think there my hon. friend, Prof. Saugata Roy is totally correct. The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre is based, and that too in Thumba in Thiruvananthapuram itself, in my constituency.

Yet the information did not reach the people whose lives, therefore, could not be saved. That too needs to be looked at. I hope that the investigation would cover this. Are our existing protocols adequate? What about the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre that was set up in US? Can we participate? Are there financial issues preventing us? We are being increasingly subject to weather disturbances. Let us face it. Global warming is making weather all the more unpredictable. It has been pointed out by an earlier Speaker that normally typhoons are on the eastern side. They occur in Bay of Bengal not in the Arabian Sea side. Today we have seen a cyclone coming right from south-west Sri Lanka, pass Kanyakumari to Thiruvananthapuram and to Lakshadweep. This is news. We must prepare for this and if it means more expenditure please let us do this. The fourth aspect of inquiry must be deployment. Where are we deploying our search and rescue vessel capacity? I am sorry to say that there is very little in Thiruvananthapuram. The search and rescue aircraft and vessels that exist are actually in Kochi. That means we are losing half an hour to one hour each time even by air if we have to do any serious search and rescue. … (Interruptions) There is nobody in this House who is more affected than me. (u2/1435/ksp/pc)

 My constituency is the most affected. Please give me five minutes more. Sir, 77 people from my constituency have died. I suggested to the Prime Minister and to the Defence Minister that we set up, in our country, the marine equivalent of the Territorial Army. We have a Territorial Army. If one day, God forbid, there is a serious war, we will be pressing the Territorial Army into service. Why can we not do this at the level of the Coast Guard for our fisher people? We can hire people from the fishing community – people who understand the sea, people who understand the problems, they understand where the fisher people are going – give them one month’s training, recruit them and thereafter they can go back to their normal profession and then, perhaps, whenever there is a natural calamity and search and rescue issue, we can bring them on board and get them to go. If the reason why the Coast Guard and the Navy initially did not accept these people is because they felt that they are not professionally trained, then my suggestion to the Home Minister would actually respond to this need because you would be able to train them and as trained people, they would be able to go on these Naval Ships and guide them to rescuing lives. This is my humble request to the Government.

 I finally want to end on the issue that everybody has already spoken about because I realise there is not much new to be said and that is the question of compensation. The fact is that when the Finance Minister replied yesterday to the discussion on the Supplementary Demands, I suggested that there should be a serious compensation package. But he only referred to the existing national disaster funds that are administered by your Ministry. Now you know, Sir, that that is not adequate. The entire Prime Minister’s Relief Fund is only Rs. 153 crore whereas for this crisis alone, we have got, from the Kerala Government, a request for Rs. 7,348 crore and from the Tamil Nadu Government, I believe the request is for about Rs. 9,000 crore. Frankly, it needs, if necessary, a separate appropriation to deal with this calamity. Let me stress that it is not just compensating the families of those who have lost their lives or those who have been injured. There, you can give Rs. 25 lakh as the Kerala Government is giving or Rs. Five lakh to the injured and you can add some money to rebuild houses. But this is not enough. We need some structural steps to be taken so that the money that we are asking for from the Central Government can be used constructively. My colleague has mentioned about Pulimuttu, sea walls that break the force of the water. That is one thing certainly on which resources have not adequately been devoted. I can assure you about this because I go up and down my coastal areas. We do not have enough of these and, in fact, whatever building occurred, it occurred many years ago and there have not been resources available. I would go beyond that. I would say that your team should go at the earliest and look not only at immediate needs prompted by the disaster, but also at medium term and long term needs. Amongst the medium term needs, I would stress very much the necessary infrastructure that I have just mentioned. But equally in the longer term needs, I would like to request that this is the time when we have to think in a visionary way. Can we live in a society in which the children of fishermen are condemned to only being fishermen? Can we not give them serious vocational training and skill development so that many of them can move away from this profession? I would say that both agriculture and fishing are now in a position where more people are trying to live from these professions than the professions are able to sustain. This is a very serious challenge facing our country. If we approach it with vision, we have to say that we do not need so many people on the farms, we do not need so many people out at sea. There is so much desperation. As an MP, I have had cases of the boats of the fishermen from my constituency being arrested in Diego Garcia by the British. They have gone that far because they cannot get adequate fish in the waters closer to India. We have over-fished these waters. So, the livelihood issue is serious and, I believe that we should take the opportunity of this disaster to approach the matter with vision and conviction and come up with a solution that will give us a long term solution to the problems of the entire fishing community. I do want to add one final word of appreciation. I do realise that when we, in Parliament, seem to be critical, it is because the criticisms are coming to us that we are also, perhaps, coming across as ungrateful. I want to place on record our gratitude to all the men and women of the Coast Guard and the Navy. I have spoken to some of them and they have done as much as they could, I am sure, and with the best heart. I do not want anyone to think that we are ungrateful or that the fishing community is ungrateful. So, I appreciate, as I said earlier, the responsiveness of the Central Government. (w2/1440/rp-mm)

I spoke to Nirmala ji on 30th and by 4th of December, she was there personally. The Prime Minister has been there a couple of days ago. This is good and we appreciate the fact that the Central Government is giving importance to this issue. We will not say the importance it deserves because for us there it deserves even more and more urgent importance but there is some importance. I will be very grateful, if, in addition to the gratitude, the long-term outcomes reflect your commitment to resolving this. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Sir.