|
In spite of militancy, villagers had to stay at villages to earn their livelihood by adopting jhum (traditional agriculture), fishing and collecting bamboo. As the atrocities or torture on innocent tribal villagers touched extreme level in 2001-02, some families were planning to leave the place to save their lives.
And finally the state government adopted a plan to set up re-grouped villages in order to rehabilitate militancy affected people. The government proposed to bring tribal people living under extreme security threat to safer places and provide them rehabilitation facilities.
Rangitilla is one of these re-grouped villages. As per the plan, around 48 tribal families from Bangshicherra and its adjacent villages were shifted to Rangitilla, near Chakmaghat barrage in 2003.
Basic facilities like land, GI sheets, electricity connection, water supply, school, healthcare facility had been given to the re-grouped villagers. Yet, they are not happy.
Take the example of Bangshi Laxmi. “Look at me, am I not a virtually deserted man? I had five Kani of fertile land for jhuming at Bangshicherra. Here, only five ganda is provided to me in rehabilitation”, he said.
On being asked, the father of two sons said: “I can’t do jhum because of land scarcity. In fact, I don’t have alternative source of income save collecting bamboo and wood. Is this sufficient to run my family”, he questioned.
Niranjan Debbarma, another re-grouped man also echoed the same ordeal. “I had to leave my ancestral properties that include four Kanis of fertile land and two ponds due to extreme torture of militants. They had made our lives miserable”.
“To save my family, I came here and was given only five ganda of tilla land by the government”, he said. Bamboo and wood collection are my main sources of income”, he said. Niranjan also resented over the faulty payment procedure in national flagship programme- NREGA.
“Out of total 30-day wages, I have got only 18 man-days. This has added more woes to my families”, he said.
Suchitra Debbarma, wife of Chandra Prasad Debbarma, who was re-grouped from Sardokarkori under Teliamura block, also voiced concern over the limited source of income even after implementation of NRGEA and foreign aided project- Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
“We had an enough property at Sardokarkori, another conflict zone of Teliamura block. But here only five ganda of land is being provided us. In fact, no place is left for jhum cultivation”, she said. “Irregular payment of NREGA has been adding more woes to our life”, he added.
At Rangitilla re-grouped village, the JICA project has failed to bring cheer to the villagers. All is not well in Rangitilla English Medium Nursery School floated under the JICA project. Sukumar Debbarma, teacher of the Nursery School is frustrated with the way the authority is handling the school.
Though 30 students have so far been enrolled in the school, most of the students remain absent in spite of repeated appeals by the teachers.
The Nursery School itself is suffering due to lack of infrastructure. There is no bench for sitting arrangement inside the one-roomed school. Students have to sit on Bamboo mats.
“I have been telling the authority to provide at least bench so that students could sit properly. It seems, they are not interested in providing basic needs of the school”, said Sukumar who gets Rs. 1000 per month as remuneration.
The teacher also lamented at the lack of awareness among the guardians. They did not send their wards to the school in spite of repeated appeals to them.
With NREGA and the JICA proved futile to bring smiles in the faces of the refugees, the only probable outcome to salvation still left is proper monitoring of rehabilitation programme. The present scenario of the rehabilitation scheme is not so encouraging anyway.
By
Prabir Shil |