By Y.P. Rajesh

BAMBOOFLAT, India, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Thousands of tsunami victims on India's remote Andaman and Nicobar archipelago are still living in temporary shelters almost three years after the devastating Dec. 2004 tsunami washed away their homes.

A plan to build nearly 10,000 permanent houses has crawled behind several deadlines with work even at a showpiece project near the capital of the islands progressing lazily, making victims despondent in their filthy tin shacks that bake in the tropical sun.

They are the forgotten victims of one of the worst disasters mankind has known due to what aid groups say is the combined onslaught of bureaucratic ineptitude, avarice, natural hurdles and the physical and psychological distance from the mainland.

"Housing remains a burning issue for victims and progress remains very slow," said Anupama Muhuri of voluntary group ActionAid. "In fact, on some far-flung islands, they are still searching for sites to build permanent shelters."

"Where they have identified sites or construction has started they have not consulted the victims, taken their livelihoods into account or promoted joint ownership by couples," she said.

The Indian Ocean tsunami hit the remote Andaman and Nicobar archipelago badly, killing more than 3,500 people and displacing nearly 40,000 when it slammed into the scenic isles which are about 1,200 km (750 miles) east of the Indian mainland.

Authorities built temporary shelters for victims made of corrugated metal sheets, and initially promised to move them into new, permanent homes in early 2007.

But the projects have been marked by many slippages and several deadlines have come and gone.

Last December, on the eve of the second anniversary of the disaster, officials said all the 40,000 homeless would get permanent houses, a total of nearly 9,800 units, by the end of this year.

But no one trusts schedules anymore with the first houses in Bambooflat, a small island about a 30-minute ferry ride from Port Blair, the capital of the archipelago, still not ready three months after a May 31 deadline.

"Nobody is raising a voice because they fear that if they protest too much they may not even get what they might one day," Muhuri said.

A sleepy, federally administered province where authorities battle long distances, poor infrastructure and heavy rains even at the best of times, the archipelago is one of India's more under-developed territories.

New Delhi runs the islands like a tight ship, restricting access to foreigners, partly to protect some of the most isolated tribal people known to still survive in the world and partly due to security paranoia in a strategically important region.

Clubbed with the lack of a local legislature, the hold of the bureaucracy is complete and this has spilled over into tsunami rehabilitation as well, Samir Acharya of the Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology said.

For instance, even though several voluntary groups were willing to build houses for victims, authorities mandated that they use government designs and source construction material from a few designated businesses.

"Initially, we saw a lot of voluntary agencies interested in building houses," said ActionAid's Muhuri. "But as the ministries started dictating designs, they gradually started pulling out."

"Now many have closed their offices and gone and even the locals have given up."

GLARING DIFFERENCES

Even more glaring is the estimated cost of each of the small, four-room houses, built using prefabricated bamboo and matted plywood walls supported on steel frames.

Locals say that the government estimate of around 700,000 rupees ($17,000) per house appears exorbitant, particularly when the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has built better houses for its tsunami victims at nearly a fifth of the cost.

Tamil Nadu, even though more badly hit by the tsunami than the Andamans, has raced ahead of the islands in rehabilitation and house construction and it has already delivered 23,000 houses to victims with thousands more due to be ready this month.

Andaman officials, however, say the islands face unique challenges and cannot be compared to the mainland.

"We can only work for four or five months in a year as it rains for the rest of the time. All the stores have to be brought from the mainland which pushes up costs and time," said Bhopinder Singh, the islands' chief administrator.

"We have overcome our initial shock and difficulties and are close to finishing our job," he told Reuters.

That comes as little consolation to Clement Kerkatta, a polio-affected tsunami victim from the Nicobars who lives in a shelter on Bambooflat and is still battling red tape.

"My name is on the list of people who are supposed to get a house and they have put up boards announcing deadlines here and there," he said.

"But every time I go to the officials they want some document or the other to prove my claims. How can I get them when everything got washed away in the waves?"

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