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Saturday, May 08, 2004

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National - Elections 2004

Floods issue dominates Raiganj

Marcus Dam

Raiganj

Floods are a perennial scourge in West Bengal's Uttar Dinajpur district and assurances to protect Raiganj Lok Sabha constituency from its ravages pepper the speeches of leaders across the political spectrum. "Such promises are made each time an election is held; but the floods keep submerging our homes every monsoon," says the owner of a public call office at Itahar, parts of which disappear under the waters of the Mahananda, which flows close-by.

The Sui, Fulohar and Kulik rivers are no less merciless when swollen, displacing hundreds of families in the flood-prone areas of the constituency that straddles the southern half of Uttar Dinajpur and the northern blocks of adjoining Malda district — a region which also suffered erosion along the banks of the rivers meandering through it.

"Nearly 68 villages in the most vulnerable Rathua area, each with a population between 1,000 and 3,000, that were in existence in the 1999 polls have since been gobbled up by the rivers and the displaced are still awaiting proper rehabilitation," says the high-profile Congress candidate, Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi.

"Sadly, both the Centre and the State Government have been perceiving the problem through the eyes of the Ganga Flood Control Commission when the need of the times is a separate and comprehensive flood management programme for north Bengal," he says. "The Commission does not include projects to prevent the flooding caused by the Mahananda, Kulik and other north Bengal rivers," he adds. Mr. Dasmunshi, on his way to the flood-prone areas of north Malda's Harischandrapur areas for an election meeting, has to be ferried in a country-boat across the Mahananda.

It is not nature alone that has not been kind to Uttar Dinajpur. At least half the district's population is made up of refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan and settlers from Bihar following the merger of parts of that State with West Bengal in the 1950s. It shares a 180 km border with Bangladesh and a 46 km-long one with Bihar, its contours giving it the shape of a chicken-neck. Its location also makes it an ideal haven for people on the run. Border crime is rampant, and smuggling is a major concern for the authorities. The lure of the fast buck is particularly irresistible to the people of a region that is among the most industrially backward in the State. Local industry is mainly confined to brick-kilns splattered across the plains.

Uttar Dinajpur has the highest percentage of cultivators and agricultural workers in West Bengal — 69.17 per cent of the district's total population according to the 2001 census. But its crop yield is among the lowest — 98 metric tons for every 100 hectares of cultivable land against a State average of 218.70 metric tons.

As if these statistics are not grim enough, Uttar Dinajpur has the lowest literacy rate in the State — 48.63 per cent in contrast to the State average of 69.22 per cent. It is against this socio-economic backdrop that Raiganj prepares for the coming polls. Mr. Dasmunshi, who beat the CPI (M)'s Samar Mukherjee by 78,000 votes in 1999, is pitted against veteran Jainal Abedin of the Trinamool Congress and the CPI (M)'s Minoti Ghosh.

The monsoon is just about a month away and even before the post-election celebrations are over the fears of floods will undoubtedly return to the minds of the locals.

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