After the deluge,the disaster

After Aila devastated a huge stretch of the coastal belt,with Gosaba block as the core,the local district administration held an emergency meeting the next day regarding relief measures,and Block Development Officer Amiyo Bhusan Chakraborty drew up a plan. Significantly,the decision taken was to stockpile relief material in the block headquarters and its neighbourhood. The panchayat members from devastated areas were required to hire boats from their ravaged areas,including the remote ones,at their own expense and come to the BDO office to collect the relief material for their villages. For the first week,the state Government did not feel the need for trying to reach out to the victims with relief supplies.

As many remote islands remained inaccessible and there was an acute shortage of motor boats,fuel and other accessories,many affected panchayats failed to turn up to the block headquarters to take the relief to their villages. Some of these areas are a three- to five-hour boat-ride from the Gosaba block headquarters.

On the eighth day,the state administration realised that its strategy of asking the distressed from far-flung islands to come and collect the relief material was wrong. So,after June 1,the plan was changed and the administration started hiring boats and even got a water vessel from the state Surface Transport Department to reach the affected areas.

Asked about this,BDO Chakraborty said: It was not only me who drew the plan,there were other officials and many higher-ups. We did not have the manpower or the infrastructure at that time. However,it is true that now we have reversed the plan and are supplying the relief material to the affected areas.

However,Swapan Chatterjee,vice-chief of the zilla parishad district council,admitted somebody,somewhere should have put their foot down. This was an impractical and absurd idea, he said. How can panchayat leaders who are among the victims and located in remote areas come to Gosaba and collect the relief? It is because of a wrong policy that people suffered.

Army,Air Force not used

Boat owners who were engaged to supply the relief material to the remote areas,mainly foodgrains,took a 10 per cent cut. This,apart from their fare,as they said they were working under risky conditions. When some,like Chotomollah Khali villagers,panchayat members and pradhan Sujit Hawli protested,the boatmen simply refused to visit the area. We have got some complaints regarding this,and we are taking action, said the Gosaba BDO. Local villagers say that considering the inaccessibility of the terrain,the Government should have deployed the Army for relief distribution. While the Centre had offered help by both the Army and Air Force,the state Government utilised them only for airdrops.

No ground assessment

Not a single administrative official visited the affected areas to evaluate the damage and draw up a list of victims,staying put in the block office. It took the announcement of the Chief Ministers visit for the Gosaba BDO to come,and after he was heckled by villagers,a section of the officials refused to return to work. District Magistrate Khalil Ahmed had to intervene to get the officials back. However,they continue to stay away from the affected areas.

Petty local politics

A Panchayat member of Parasmoni West gram panchayat in Lahirypur,Jamuna Mondol,served a notice on June 1 to a local ration dealer asking him to stop supplying foodgrains to Parasmoni East village panchayat a copy of the signed notice is with The Indian Express. Lahirypur area was among the worst affected and till two days ago it was devoid of government relief. The reason for the panchayat member,who belongs to the CPIM,threatening the ration shop dealer to stop supply was an earlier incident in which people in East Parasmoni were alleged to have chopped away some trees that belonged to West Parasmoni. It was the ration dealer who was tasked with maintaining supply of grains to cyclone victims. When asked about the matter,panchayat member Mondol said: You will not understand this. It is an internal matter of ours. Those in the East are bad people.

If this was just one minor incident of panchayat members dictating who got relief,there were other incidents of clashes over control of the ration supply chain. The pradhan of the Radhanagar gram panchayat in Gosaba block was on her way from the gram panchayat office to the village for distribution of relief when a clash erupted between local Trinamool and Revolutionary Socialist Party cadres. Under a former pradhan,the RSP cadres tried to snatch the relief material to distribute it among the needy themselves. Ultimately,the authorities had to suspend relief distribution in the area. To date,half a dozen such political clashes have been reported and FIRs registered.

Delayed payment

Villagers in Bali 1 gram panchayat area who were working to repair an embankment refused to do so after being on the job for five days. They alleged they had not been paid a single rupee,nor given NREGS money despite working under it. The repair of embankments,in fact,has become a major issue,with 470 km of it in the Sunderbans breached and in need of immediate repair,particularly with high tide scheduled to arrive in a couple of days with the full moon. When the Chief Minister visited the Sunderbans on May 31,he promised that money for embankment repair work would be given daily,on the spot,to the villagers. But until now,the administration has failed to keep his promise. The Chief Minister lied to us8230; Where is the money? asked Nirmal Mondol,one of the villagers. We have no food and water and they now want us to work for repairs throughout the day. They told us that we will be paid Rs 5 per sack of soil that we dig up and put in the embankment,which they have not paid. Just one month ago I worked for the NREGS,but did not receive any money.

Inadequate medical relief

Only five medical teams,comprising three-four members each and one doctor including volunteers,were deployed to cover the entire Gosaba block,where 60,000 people were affected. The teams were despatched after five days of devastation and they only covered a part of the area,mostly regions near the BDO office. Their first reports recorded 555 diarrhoea victims. Medicines were stacked up in the BDO office and not supplied to the affected areas. When asked about this,Chief Medical Officer of Health,South 24 Parganas,Sacchidananda Sarkar said: First comes relief and rescue and then medical help. We can set up medical camps with doctors only when the people are brought en masse to safe places in large camps. What happened was that,in villages,victims were left to the mercy of quacks. Later,the administration decided to use the services of the quacks themselves for providing medical help!