N’PADA REMOTE HAMLET WHERE GOVT DOLES A FAR CRY

N’PADA REMOTE HAMLET WHERE GOVT DOLES A FAR CRY

Tuesday, 18 February 2014 | AJIT PANDA | NUAPADA | in Bhubaneswar

    

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Ratni and Bunu, two small children of remote Khadang village in Nuapada district, were having lunch with their mother in front of their house.The food consisted of only rice mixed with water. There was no curry. Nor was anything added to the rice, not even salt.

Ehen asked what curry they were taking; their answer was “Abgi” which means “simply rice.”Further, they revealed that they had not eaten curry for more than a month.

There are over 100 such people in Khadang village for whom curry is not their cup of tea. Rice is affordable because it is available for `1 per kg, but curry is unthinkable, given the high prices of vegetables.

The only source of income for the people of Khadang, which is located in the Sunabeda plateau bordering Chhatishgarh, is bamboo basket weaving.

These poor basket weavers belong to a tribal community called Paharia-Kamar. Unfortunately, they are not in the list of tribes in Odisha although in Chhattisgarh the people of their clan are recognised as primitive tribals.

Each household of the village earns about `200 per week from weaving of bamboo baskets like winnowing fans and paddy containers etc.

“Due to the regular search operations of the anti-insurgency force, our movement inside the forest to collect bamboo has been restricted. The frequency of visit of the middle men to collect the bamboo product has also reduced, which has affected our livelihood,” said a few people.

“We are afraid of police and the Maoists as well. Eight of our villagers were beaten by the Kobra police on the ground that we were sheltering Maoists.

We are being tortured by the forces of both Chhattisgarh and Odisha,” they complained. 

“Kobra police personnel arrived in front of my house one day and ordered me to get out of my house. When I got out, some of them seized my hands and two of them slapped me indiscriminately. They ordered me to show the materials of Maoists they were looking for. They did not believe me when I said that I didn’t have any and kept beating me mercilessly,” said Sagar Paharia.

 A few others like Rabindra, Bhuju, Baldu and Dihari of the village have also the same story to share.

Khadang village has never got any benefit of Government programmes except the PDS rice.

There are more than 25 children of school-going age who have never seen a school. The children below the age of five years are not getting food under the ICDS as the nearest Anganwadi Centre is more than 15 km away. No one of the village has got health services. JSY, JSSK and Mamata schemes are like dreams for the women of the village.

The houses they live are small, thatched cottages made of bamboo. They never got any job under the MGNREGS. Three young women of the village who had been lured by a labour broker to work in a brick kiln in Andhra are missing over a year. The police have not entertained any FIR although the people have reported the matter to the higher officials of the district.

The ActionAid with the support of the RITES forum and the District Press Club, Nuapada, recently intervened in the village to create some livelihood opportunity for the people by involving them in the improvement of lands. They were provided `5,000 each to work in their fields.

“It is a great support for us. It will help us live for at least a month and a half without going out of our village,” the villagers said.

In the meanwhile, the district administration has decided to start a sub-centre of ICDS in this village.

“We are also planning to run a school in the village by appointing a local boy as a teacher,” Nuapada district Collector Jaykumar V told.