MAUTAAM

A couple of Rats give an interesting photo-op to the visiting media team as they venture along the road in between Pherjzaw and Bukpi under the rain and in the death of dearkness.
This photo is taken from inside a motor vehicle. (The Lamka Post)
Findings

Throughout its survey, MHJU is of the impression that famine
- Scarcity of food-grains, has indeed wrecked the economy of jhum dependent tribal communities.
In all the forty villages surveyed, a whooping 99% has claimed that they were already on the threshold of Mautaam. 100 % of the farmers interviewed said their normal harvest has been affected by rodents, storm or wild animals.
While describing their experiences
with governmental programmes
and its relief measures the general sentiment expressed was that the poor rarely benefit. This contention is compounded by the fact that PDS rice were sold only in bags atleast in three villages.
In fact many village chiefs have claimed that the existing BPL cards were issued not on actual survey of their living condition
but from the comfort of SDO offices based solely on assumption.
It has been revealed that the entire interior villages have in average an identical 40% BPL family. The concern officials have merely ridiculed the entire
concept and their BPL cards were scorn-off by MLA nominees or FCS agents as it fails to rope in the disfavoured.
Hardly 10% of the population
in each village could be accounted
on the APL category. As such PDS supply meant for BPL Card holders - 40% of the population
have to be shared with the remaining 50-60%.

Abode of Goats & Cows! The SDO office in Thanlon lies isolated as officials shun the interior community. had visited twice since Feb 2007; once during the election and the other during the Independence Day celebration. (The Lamka Post)

Therefore, PDS needs to be expanded and made workable and accessible to the poor. There is also a need to review the issue of food stocks and their uses. Corruption
and people’s lack of buying
power in creating a piquant situation of low offtake needs to be addressed immediately.
The magnitude of desperation
is such that the people have already submitted themselves of paltry celebration during the Christmas.
It is also revealing that a good majority of the populace lacks the purchasing power in order to benefit from PDS supplies
even if it were to genuinely reach them. Entirely dedicating their year long energy on their Jhum, they have no other resource
to depend on, when that fails.
Cutting woods, burning charcoal, hand sawing timber and collecting naturally grown forest vegetables were the only other source that could generate
alternative income. With the treacherous road connectivity and the meagre amount of resources
these sources were occasional.
And, it is not just the food-grains that have been perverted. Even ginger, turmeric, chillies and other harvest some of the people could depend on were shattered by the ever increasing rodents, storm and other wild insects and animals including parrots, squirrels, wild boars, bats, etc.

A Jhum devastated by Rodents/Rats in Thanlon sub-division (Manipur Express)

Local residents while enroute to their Jhum field lend their helping hands to the visiting media team

Sitting beside a tin and a bamboo casket that contains all his harvest, a resident attends to his fire at Ssinzawl in Tthanlon sub-division
(The Lamka Post)

None of the roads, except for the 30 plus kms stretch already black-top by BRTF, were courteous. They were mostly treacherous
and in some cases life threatening.
The pace of work undertaken by the BRTF in Tipaimukh Road/NH 150, and PWD in Tedim Road & Guite Road was abysmal. Specifications were flawed even before black-topping, in many a stretch along the road undertaken by PWD. The expansion undertaken along the stretch in close proximity
to Singngat sub-divisional hqtrs was commendable, yet a great deal of the Tedim
Road-Guite Road stretch lacks similar repute.
At Bukpi village, a twenty-five years old innovative youth has grown morethan 200 vines of Beetlenut leaves (Mithapatta) and plug 5000 leaves every week with a handsome
proceed of Rs. 1500/-
Government officials including the SDOs have shunned the interior sub-division
and merely visit their place of actual posting once in a while. Most of the office works are executed from the district hqtr only to reckon the suffering of the interior community. In a great deal of the educational
institutions unqualified villagers were engage on lease by the bonafied teachers, and what is more interesting is the fact that some of the village chief were part of the deal with a stake.

Lunch-time for a family at Ttiuma: with just two half filled bags (arrow) it is clear this family of five won’t celebrate Christmas with their harvest.

The pitiable road connectivity
has ensnared the media team in morethan a 50 points during their five day survey

NREGS as immediate relief

Though most of the villagers have to pay from their own pocket the expenses
incurred in obtaining their photos; Rs 20/- in most cases, 75% of the individuals
interviewed (including women) and 85% in the case of men were fully aware that JOB CARDS were meant for realising a hundred days Job from the government.
Therefore, the NREG Scheme, if implemented
immediately and used for improving the road connectivity of the villages, would go a long way in relieving
the adversity interior communities have bumped upon.
That way, families under the clutches
of famine would be able to earn their living and the treacherous road connectivity
would fare better-of to enhance regulation of PDS items and other essential
commodities.
But with the present pace of implementation it is doubtful that the scheme would reach them before they really starve. And the financial year closing March 2008 it would be a challenging task to practically endow a hundred days job in four months in which Christmas and New Year festivity should also reckon.