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STATES:
ORISSA
Starved
Of A Future
With
the state reeling under a severe drought and government measures providing
little succour, prospects of a famine loom large
By
Ruben
Banerjee
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LUXURY
CLASS: Belgaon Asram students eat what is possibly their only meal
in the day
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Being
a primary school-teacher in the god-forsaken interiors of western Orissa
has never been easy for Hrudaynath Panda. His salary is ridiculously low,
the drop-out rate is abnormally high and the Belgaon Asram school's infrastructure
abysmal. There are only a couple of rooms, and classes have to be held
mostly in the open, under a tree in the untidy courtyard. Even the rooms
are no good when it rains: their roofs leak so much that Panda and his
pupils have to carry their umbrellas into the classrooms.
But these
problems seem like minor irritants compared to what Panda
is confronted with at present. His students are almost always hungry and
have been insisting that they be fed food before Panda quenches their
thirst for knowledge. As a result the 48-year-old teacher spends a good
part of his day overseeing the cooking of mid-day meals for his wards.
It is not
an easy task. The ration that the school gets for the mid-day meal is
certainly not enough for everyone. And there is a lot to complain about
the sparse meal of rice and dal offered in the school. The rice is coarse
and every mouthful - there are not too many in any case - is peppered
with minute pieces of stones while the dal stinks. But Panda's pupils
lick their plates clean heartily and never complain. In a region caught
in the vice-like grip of a drought, with prospects of a famine looming
large, any meal-however small, and even if once a day-is a luxury. Most
others in the region are not even half as lucky.
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"We
eat rarely these days. My children are starving." Sabitri Tandi,
26, from Jagannathpali village and her husband have had no work
for several weeks.
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Luck certainly
has eluded the rugged terrains of Bolangir, Bargarh, Nuapada, Sonepur,
Sundergarh and Jharsuguda districts in western Orissa yet once again.
With the monsoon failing and virtually no rain in the past few months,
Orissa's vast outback has faced one of the severest droughts in recent
time. The debilitating consequences are now showing up as a chain of catastrophes
in this rain-fed region. After the crops failed, all farming activity
came to a halt. Jobs became scarce for the resident population comprising
mostly daily wage earners, forcing lakhs to migrate in search of livelihood
and food.
"We
are in for difficult times," admits state Revenue Minister Biswabhusan
Harichandan. That may be an understatement. Already, reports of starvation
deaths are trickling in. A woman is said to have died of starvation in
Bongomunda village in Bolangir district in January. Some more died in
neighbouring Padampur village in Bargarh district. With the death toll
rising, doomsday predictions are getting shriller. As Bijoy Mohapatra,
president of the Orissa Gana Parishad, alleges, "Western Orissa has
been reduced to one big wasteland. It is on its way to becoming another
Ethiopia."
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"I
am useless now. I can only starve to death." Lakshmidhar Sagaria,
68, was among the hundreds who turned up at the site where a road
was being laid near Agreen village in Nuapada district. But only
a dozen able-bodied people found employment.
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International
agencies, known for their tempered predictions, share the concern. "The
situation is indeed grim," says S.K. Bandyopadhyay of the Food and
Agriculture Organisation of the UN. Indeed, block after block in the western
districts face gripping food shortages. In Komna block of Nuapada district
alone, the food deficit is over 8,000 metric tonnes. In Loisingha (Bolangir),
the deficit is over 4,320 metric tonnes. The district of Bolangir, for
that matter, suffers from a total deficit to the tune of 73,000 metric
tonnes while Nuapada is short by over 23,000 metric tonnes.
It is truly
apocalypse time in western Orissa. The region has received less than half
the normal rainfall in the past year and over 80 per cent of the crop
has been lost. Even the relatively richer landlords have been reduced
to penury by the drought. The plight of the small and marginal farmers
has been infinitely worse.
As always,
the Government is trying to make the situation look less grim. "We
have petitioned the Centre for financial help and no stone will be left
unturned to mitigate the people's problems," says a senior minister.
The Government has already announced that free kitchens will be started
in every block in the affected areas so that no one starves and that the
quota of rice being supplied under the PDS will be doubled so that the
food deficit can be bridged.
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| "I've
been left to die. By the time my sons return, I'll be gone."
Bhagat NAG, 66, was left to fend for himself in Jagannathpali village
in Nuapada by his sons when they migrated to Hyderabad for work. |
This is easier
said than done. The service-delivery systems are faulty and running 4,000
kitchens can be a logistical nightmare. Some key questions remain unanswered:
Who would cook the food? And where would the utensils come from? The promise
of doubling the PDS food also does not inspire much hope because most
of the people may not have any money left to buy food.
Bhagat Nag,
66, of Jagannathpali village in Nuapada is one such. The widower was left
behind by his sons when they migrated to Hyderabad to work in brick kilns.
Having had just a couple of meals in a whole week, Bhagat is barely managing
to keep body and soul together. "I have been left to die. By the
time my sons come back, I will surely be dead and gone," the old
man whispers with strain. Migration from the region is routine, but this
time it is an exodus. Conservative estimates say that 30 per cent more
people have migrated from the region in this season than in the previous
year.
The misery
though has followed the hordes of migrants. Their unusually large number
has meant that there are more workers than there is work, making them
easy targets of exploitative contractors and employers. Few are given
the customary advance payment, forcing many to leave their families behind
without any money to buy food.
But the
Government does not seem bothered by the exodus. The flight of labour-irrespective
of the exploitation it faces-means fewer mouths to feed. It has also chosen
to ignore the long-term consequences of mass migrations, like child abuse,
school drop outs and a soaring crime rate. Also, its efforts to start
labour intensive projects in the region to generate employment are faring
badly because of the lack of resources. Government-sponsored work is currently
on in Nuapada district. But only the able bodied are getting work because
the outlay is a mere Rs 10 crore. If everyone is to be employed, the district
needs a disbursement of at least Rs 100 crore. In any case, by next month
the Rs 10 crore will be exhausted and the work will stop.
"We
have the will, but where are the resources?" laments Nuapada's intrepid
young collector, Bishnupad Sethi. What makes it infinitely worse is that
much of the resources are in inept hands. In Sonepur, old-age pensions
have not been disbursed for the past three months because of administrative
laxity. Bolangir still does not have a civil supplies officer though the
district is facing a food crisis. And in Nuapada, the local legislator,
who incidentally is also a cabinet minister, has not disbursed Rs 45 lakh
from his local-area development kitty for the past three years because
he cannot decide how it should be spent.
As development
work takes a backseat, the upshot is multiplying misery. At Agreen village
under Komna block, hundreds of workers turned up this past week to lay
a road. But only a dozen finally found employment. Lakshmidhar Sagaria,
68, too old to work but hungry all the same, was summarily disqualified
by the contractor. "I am useless now. The only thing that I can do
is to die of hunger," Sagaria wails.
Bereft of
livelihood and forsaken by nature, the people of western Orissa are being
forced to cut down on the number of meals. Many are living on wild grass
and roots. Amidst the deprivation, the children in Panda's school readily
eat whatever little they get. Cheerfully, and gratefully.
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