When the tsunami hit the bustling market town of Hambantota, on Sri Lanka 's southern coast, Mrs Renuka and her children had a narrow escape.

Clutching her four-month old daughter and two other infants, she took shelter behind her house and then fled to higher ground. Her husband, who was selling food at the market, was swept out to sea.

Hambantota town centre was demolished by the deadly wave, which killed nearly 31,000 in Sri Lanka and left half a million homeless along 400 miles of coast.

Six months later, Renuka sits on her porch with her three children, listlessly watching the dust blow across a plot of newly-built houses three miles from the town. Electricity and water is not expected for another two months. There are no shops or transport.

“I don't know how to restart my life,” says Renuka. “We are living on government aid. Without my husband's income I don't know how we'll manage. “I've never had a job but maybe I could open a shop here if I could get a property.”

Built in just four months, the estate is seen by aid professionals as an example of the folly which can result from the scramble to spend money without first involving communities.

The public response to the tsunami around the world raised some £1.8 billion in aid for Sri Lanka and ensured that epidemics caused by lack of hygiene or shelter did not claim any more lives.

But, six months on, aid agencies on the ground – frustrated by inefficient government bureaucracy and lack of coordination – are warning that the next stages of reconstruction must be better planned.

“Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), pushed by the government, were rushing to get keys in the doors of houses but did not have walkways up to them or any services,” says John Skelly, a construction engineer with the aid agency GOAL .

“No great thought went into the communities that would be moving into them. We are trying to get people settled in their own communities where they were before.”

Employing local craftsmen and labourers, GOAL has financed almost 1300 temporary houses – sturdy structures expected to last a year or more – in tsunami-affected areas on the south and east coast, mainly on sites where people previously lived or near relatives and friends.

Six months after the tsunami, people are better prepared to make decisions about their future, and aid agencies are consulting them on the type of housing they would like and where they want to live.

However, according to the UNHCR, repair and reconstruction work will take several years. NGOs complain that the pace of development is uneven and government policies are unclear. “Lack of planning is endemic,” comments one professional aid worker privately, adding that political favouritism means some areas get more help than others.

“When the building craze started, people signed up for houses without thinking. Now some of them want to move as they are too far from where they used to work, but it's not clear if government rules will allow it.”

Mano Tittawella, head of the Sri Lankan government's national reconstruction task force (TAFREN), was not available for comment when contacted, but in a recent letter to the Sri Lankan Daily News he rejected critics of the government's housing policy.

More than 41,000 shelters, will, he claimed, be ready by the end of June, which will house all survivors currently living in tents and welfare centres. According to TAFREN, nearly 100,000 houses will be built by overseas donors, a quarter of which should be under construction by July.

While not everyone agrees with Tittawella's optimistic timetable – hundreds of tents still dot coastal areas – aid agencies are turning to schemes to improve survivors' work prospects and offset the risk of dependency on handouts.

Until now, most aid has been focused on repairing fishing boats and nets. According to official figures, about 275,000 people lost their livelihoods in the wake of the tsunami; more than a third of them worked in fisheries.

Villagers in Wandarupa, a fishing village razed by the tsunami, were promised housing at a site inland but many of the men prefer to stay.

“Fishing is the only work I know,” says Mr Ranjit, who lives with his wife and seven children in temporary shelters built on the ruins of their house. “I will stay and fish here but my family is scared to stay by the sea. They will move if we get a place.”

Appeals for foreign donations to buy the fishermen new boats were so successful that questions have been raised about creating sustainable jobs.

“It's important that we don't just replace equipment but do other things like training and looking at other types of employment,” says Sheena McCann, country director of the aid agency Concern Worldwide . “One of the worries now is that there are too many boats.”

According to an expert at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation there are now about 5000 additional fishing boats which run the risk of depleting dwindling fish stocks. But creating alternative livelihoods is not a simple task in an economy distorted by aid.

Recent street protests over delays in government aid to communities on the outskirts of Hikkaduwa – once a thriving holiday resort and major source of jobs – went largely unnoticed as political disputes over sharing aid with Tamil separatists grabbed the headlines.

But the demonstrations were significant. Tsunami survivors are growing impatient. They know there is a lot of overseas aid in the country and they cannot all see the benefits.

How the aid is shared out is a potential source of conflict across Sri Lanka , not only in former war zones.