While starvation deaths may not have occurred here for eight years now,villagers of Amlasole say people here die early due to malnutrition and addiction to cheap liquor. More than a year after the Trinamool Congress government took over,irregular food ration,no jobs,lack of healthcare and education facilities continue to dog this village located on the edge of West Bengal-Jharkhand border in West Midnapore district,which was visited by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee recently. Nandakishore Munda of the village said: The Chief Minister said the state government has begun recruiting 5,000 youths from Junglemahal in NVF,Home Guard and Police Force,but not a single youth from our village has been recruited so far. Pandu Munda of our village has successfully completed field and physical examinations but he is yet to be recruited. In the absence of jobs,migration to neigbouring Jharkhand and even to other far-off states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu is also commonplace. Enquiries revealed that the village with about 380 heads has only about 10 people who have passed Madhyamik examination while only four have graduated over the decade. Only about 40 children go to school, said Tamal Das of Amlasole. With no higher secondary school in Amlasole and its neighbouring villages,Das had to send his son,Dipu,to Ghatshila College in Jharkhand. I would not have sent my son to Jharkhand had Balichuha High School and Dalchuha School here had been upgraded, Das said. Another concern of the villagers is health. I want to become a doctor because malignant malaria is rampant and has caused many deaths. The government health centre hardly function, says Krishna Karmakar,a Class VII student of Kakrajhore Madhyamik Siksha Kendra. When malignant malaria breaks out in our village,quacks from Jharkhands Hullum,Ghatdoba and Karadoba come here on bicycles to treat us and we purchase medicines and injections from them. We prefer their treatment as medicines from local government health centre take long to cure us, said villager Jagadhis Munda. Another menace is child marriage with no effort on the part of the government to make people aware of the social evil. Sunita Sabar (15) of Amlasole became a mother at the age of 12. I was forced to quit studies in Class III. I was married off at 11, Sunita said. At 18,Srimati Sabar,who was married off to a Jharkhand youth,is a mother of three. Quoting the 2001 Census reports,an official of Binpur II Block,under which Amlasole village falls,said : Out of 379 villagers in Amlasole,144 are literate. There are 83 families in Amlasole. When asked if any attempt to bring the people of Amlasole under Literacy Mission was made,the official,requesting anonymity said: The area was earlier inaccessible due to Maoist activities. Many villagers are addicted to liquor. To buy liquor,some villagers have even sold solar panels that were given to them by the government. They keep a portion of rice given to them by the government for consumption and sell the rest to purchase liquor, said a villager. (Concluded)
