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| Portion of Kangsabati river barrage. |
The pictorial Mukutmanipur dam which halts
water flow of the river Kumari and Kansabati and irrigates parts of Bankura, Paschim
Medinipur, Purba Medinipur and Hooghly provides one of examples of the bitter
and unreported experiences of what happens in neighbouring villages of large
scale dam constructions. People a couple of generations ago have seen villages
submerged under water, large scale evacuation process and irrevocable loss of social
and emotional bonding.
What did they get in return is perhaps the
most vital question. To understand this question I have been roaming around villages
of Dhagora, Peerless para, Ekkaduar, Nadupara, Jambedia and Barghutu. Each of
the villages fall under Gorabari Gram Panchayat which is now controlled by the
Trinamool Congress. Mostly Tribal people like Santals, Bhumijs and a few
families of Mundas occupy these villages. Some Scheduled Caste groups like Teli,
Lohar and Bene live in some of the villages in the region. While the dam is filled with water regulated
by the irrigation department to irrigate different parts of the neighbouring
districts people in the adjascent villages keep depending on the rainwater to
cultivate. Excepting the village
Jambedia the rest of the villages cultivate a single crop and the amount they
got is just enough for preparing next year’s seeds and providing their family a
couple of rice meals throughout the year.
What
makes the difference?
The difference which will be discussed soon
is solely an outcome of positional advantage of the Jambedia than the rest of
the villages. Jambedia which is about five kilometres south-west from the head
regulator of the Kangsabati river barrage, have the closest farmlands from the
dam water. Villagers use suction pump to
pull out water to irrigate their farm lands. Interestingly the strategic
locational advantage of the village farmland is a result of the evacuation
process. The village headman, the Majhi, who is old enough to see and remember the
actual process of evacuation reports that people from Jambedia village have
lost their land and bought new lands from neighbouring villages like Surigram
and Jhanti-Pahari which are now disappeared under water. The irrigation results
in production of multiple crops which is otherwise impossible in the region. The
Self Help Group (SHG) initiatives taken by the Panchayat have resulted in the
availability of loans and the village SHG members have purchased several such
pumps to irrigate their farm land in arid seasons. However, similar SHGs of the
adjacent villages did not buy simply because they barely have access to the
water that they see every day from their village.
The
nature of difference:
One crop makes a family to survive two
crops ensure educational attainments and three crops makes significant impact
on health and well being. I did Participatory Rural Appraisal as well as Focus
Group Discussions to find out the nature of educational and occupational attainments
of the villagers. It is seen that Jambedia has several college going students
and has sons and daughters working as school teachers, government employees and
as other white-collar workers. This has been possible because on average they
could afford to send their children not only to the schools but also to the
colleges and even to universities. Other villages have school going children,
perhaps a good result of the Mid-day meal programme but none of the villagers
could afford to continue their child’s post-school education. Young boys are
sent to cities like Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune to do construction
works. While they stay abroad for a long period of time, it is reported by
several villagers that they have high rate of Sexually Transmitted Disease,
perhaps a common trend among the migrant labourers.
The
possibilities:
While water scarcity is the main factor
behind the difference between Jambedia and the rest, the Gorabari Gram
Panchayat is constantly trying to improve water retention by constructing hapa, small water reservoir with the
help of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme. My two
years field visit in the region shows that while the Gram Panchayat has planned
innovatively to create hapas and
interconnecting them to ensure long-term water retention, it is extremely
difficult to convince villagers to provide land where such interconnected hapas can be constructed. There is no
initiative from the irrigation department to install possible schemes like
River Lift Irrigation, may be because it would reduce actual irrigation
potential. However, in consequence villagers apart from Jambedia continue to
toil for water which is plenty but inaccessible.
