Bihar: Villages suffering from the curse of Kosi lack basic facilities like health, education and land!

People no longer have any hope of improvement or relief from the misery spread in these areas due to floods.

Tarique Anwar, Translated by: Ankit Pachauri

Supaul/Darbhanga (Bihar): Every year, the Kosi river, which is called the ‘curse of Bihar’, floods and destroys remote settlements like Khokhanaha along with four other settlements. Isolated and neglected from the district headquarters, these villages face terrible problems. The people of these villages are forced to live in adverse conditions without any hope of change.

The fields and barns have been destroyed due to erosion due to the floods. Farming is no longer possible here due to the silt brought by the river. People no longer have any hope of improvement or relief from the misery spread in these areas due to floods.

.In particular, Khokhanaha village is not the only village in Ghonriya Panchayat, a village with 1,000 families, which is located in the middle of the river like an island. There are around 15 such villages spread across at least 10 panchayats. The total population of the ‘island’ is estimated to be around 30,000. Ghonriya panchayat alone has a population of 7,000 people who live in nine villages around it.

As for the loss of agriculture and livelihood in Khokhanaha and the neighbouring villages of Panchgachhia, Belagot and Begumganj, residents say the governments (both state and central) have not only promised to mitigate the fury of the river but have also shown no interest in providing adequate compensation.

Every year, the Kosi belt floods, causing thousands of people to lose their homes, fields, crops and even land. These villages also lack basic services, including secondary schools, electricity and primary health care.

Dharmendra Kumar, a resident of Khokhanaha, who runs a customer service centre (CSP) of Uttar Bharat Gramin Bank – a government-owned Scheduled Castes bank, tells The Mooknayak. “People from the Banjara community (nomads) also spend a few years in one place. But due to floods, we become homeless every year.” “Five wards of his village boycotted the 2019 general elections when the government allegedly did nothing to help them, but nothing changed even after that. The village is also deprived of basic necessities like primary health centres (PHCs), medicine shops, small markets, etc., so people have to go to Supaul for every need. In the absence of transport and roads, it takes them a whole day to reach the city and come back home, as the roads and transport are lacking and commuting is difficult.

“Before reaching the road that leads to Supaul, we have to cross two streams continuously while travelling in a boat and walk for several kilometres in this unbearably hot weather. Since there is only one boat, which takes about 35-40 minutes to go from one bank to the other, we have to wait for that boat to return to our side. So it takes a whole day to travel to and from the city,” Dharmendra said.

Women suffer the most “It is almost impossible for a stranger to reach our villages. When there is a flood, the entire area is submerged in water. The whole area looks like an ocean. We have to travel by boat from our villages where the water is knee-deep. The water flows two laghaa above the river bed, which we have to cross on foot. Since many of us do not have gas cylinders, cooking becomes challenging,” said Meena Devi, a daily wage labourer and mother of two children from the Ravidas community. We place earthen stoves on temporary elevated platforms.”

“Even when there are no floods, our settlements are so difficult to reach that not even candidates from every political party visit us. The only leaders who visited us to seek our votes were those whose election symbol is the lantern (Rashtriya Janata Dal or RJD candidates). Neta log aave che, vote maange la, jitiyi ke baad ghur ke nai puchhaye chaye (leaders come here to seek votes, but do not return after being elected),” said Meena in the regional parlance.

We asked Kalkatiya Devi, a 40-year-old mother of five and belonging to the Musahar caste, what people do when they fall sick in the ‘island’ as the area lacks medical facilities and doctors. “Nothing,” she replied.

“If it is daytime, people carry them on a cot like a dead person to the river, where a boat takes them to the other side. The patient is then lifted again and carried to the road to be taken to a government hospital in the city in a vehicle,” she said, adding, “If it is nighttime, nothing can be done.

What happens if a pregnant woman goes into labour and is unable to deliver the baby at home due to some complication? “These days, women are expected to keep visiting doctors in the city and as the delivery date approaches, they are either admitted to a hospital or stay with their relatives in the city so that any emergency can be attended to immediately,” she said.

But during floods, if labour pains suddenly start at night, one can never reach the hospital from here. “There are many of us who do not go to the doctor during pregnancy and hope for a normal delivery. But in such a situation, it becomes very difficult for the women,”

Why does Kosi wreak so much havoc?

Gopal Jha, 70, of Belaghat village claimed that he has been seeing this village like this for the last 40 years. He told us, “Nothing has changed, there has been no development. People have been left at the mercy of God by successive governments. The irony is that the state government does not even acknowledge the destruction and displacement of settlements due to the floods. When people demand rehabilitation and compensation, it is outright rejected. When the matter goes to court, the district magistrate files a false affidavit, saying there was no flood in the area,”

Singheshwar Rai, 67, told that earlier the river water used to spread in a vast area (about 23-24 kilometres on both sides of the village). But urbanisation and the construction of dams have reduced the area to eight-nine kilometres.

“When Nepal releases large amounts of water, canalisation of the river results in huge torrents. Since the water can no longer spread out, it rushes through the narrows, eroding and damaging villages. In a 1960 map, the entire area covered 3,200 bighas of land (about 2,000 acres). But now 80% of the area has gone into the river. “After the devastation of the 2020 floods, around 200 men and women staged a sit-in for several days outside the district magistrate’s residence in the shivering cold demanding compensation and rehabilitation, but the officials did not even try to understand the suffering of the village people. On the third day of the protest, their officials promised us that our demands would be looked into and resolved. This proved to be a mere sham as nothing has happened so far,” he said. A youth from the Sahni community of the Scheduled Caste intervened in the conversation and said that 1,220 houses in the area were destroyed in the 2020 floods and the land on which the houses used to be is now part of the river, but no compensation was given to those affected people. “We went to the Patna High Court seeking a direction to the district administration for compensation and rehabilitation. We were surprised when the administration denied through an affidavit that there was any flood in the area that year. When we countered the lie with new paper reports, the officials said that they had surveyed the area. We had inspected the area but there was no flood. There was only waterlogging due to heavy rains.

.All the people the reporter spoke to refused to recognise their MP Dileshwar Kamait as he never visited the area after being elected to the Lok Sabha. People said, “We don’t know who our MP is. Even if you give us some photographs of different leaders so that we can identify them in them, we will not be able to recognise them.”

Children drop out after Class 5!

The village has only one middle school (up to Class 5). “The local government school is up to Class 5. It has one teacher, who comes occasionally,” said Rameshwar Mukhiya. “The school effectively runs for no more than five-six months. The area remains submerged in water for three-four months, and hence, the school remains closed. So, if you exclude all the official holidays for the entire year, the school remains open for only five-six months.

Gagan Dev Mandal, a resident of Belagot, said that after Class 5, children have to enrol in high school, which is on the other side of the river. “After Class 5, children have to cross the river to go to school. As a result, many of them drop out,” he said.

Marriage a big problem

Villagers said no one wants to get their daughters married in the villages as the village is completely cut off from the rest of the world. Outsiders cannot even “dare” to think of visiting their villages during floods, he said.

“The only people who marry their daughters here are those who are financially weak and cannot afford the wedding expenses. They happily marry our daughters but do not agree to send their daughters here.”

Pucca houses – a distant dream

All the houses on the ‘island’ are made of bamboo, reed, straw and tin. Even those who can make a good living do not build brick-concrete houses because the land they are living on is destroyed by the river.

“We have to spend at least Rs 50,000 to build such a temporary house. Today, if someone builds a permanent house by spending a lot of money, what will happen to his investment when the house falls into the river and the land on which he lives goes into the river? So, everyone lives here in these temporary shelters. This is no less expensive. After two-three years, we will have to change this place and continue investing the amount,” the chief said.

Courtesy: Hindi News