The Hindu : Karnataka News : Flood victims left high and dry after evacuation

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Karnataka

Flood victims left high and dry after evacuation

Staff Correspondent

Helpless evacuees at Kagwad relief camp plan to boycott elections

The families get inadequate foodgrains
Daily wages given only once or twice a week

EVICTED AND FORGOTTEN: A scene at the Kagwad relief camp in Belgaum district where the people are living in sub-human conditions.

Kagwad (Belgaum district): The tin sheds at the temporary relief centre at Kagwad in Athani taluk present a picture of apathy of the successive governments towards flood-affected families.

The frustrated families have threatened to boycott elections as the promise of succour by successive governments has not been kept.

“We have nothing by which we can make the Government listen to our woes. All parties want our votes but forget us soon after the elections. What is the point in voting for those who have no concern for us?,” asked Parshuram Channappa Waghmare.

Balasaheb Arjun Kamble Sawant Mayappa Mang, Murghendra Mang, Adiveppa Kamble, Sudhakar Ramu Kotnis and Uday Nadev Lokare support his view.

Mr. Waghmare said: “Since our vote has no value, we may as well not cast it.”

It has been more than three years since the devastating floods hit the area in August 2005.

About 300 members belonging to 60 families live in these sheds without proper drinking water facility and electricity connection. The foodgrains distributed through ration shops are inadequate. They do not get adequate kerosene to cook food.

Initially, about 500 persons were housed at this relief centre after one of the worst floods in which their houses (in Kusnal, Mulwad and Ugar B.K. in Athani taluk) on the banks of the Krishna were washed away.

The then Government headed by N. Dharam Singh had planned to shift them and his successor H.D. Kumarswamy had promised them proper rehabilitation. Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa too promised to find a permanent solution to the problems of these families.

However, although the measures to shift 36 villages, six of them fully and the remaining partially, had been taken, the administration is finding it difficult to get land for the purpose.

But more than rehabilitation at the moment, the families at Kagwad relief centre are worried over unemployment in view of the prevailing drought conditions.

Their attempts to get employment under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme turned futile as the Kusnal Gram Panchayat refused to enrol them under the scheme on the ground that they were “santrastarau” (victims of natural calamity). It agreed to consider their request only if they returned to their respective villages (falling under Kusnal Gram Panchayat), says 40-year-old Basavva Bhupal Kamble.

Mr. Waghamare says the families are not in a position to return to their villages as their houses have been washed away.

The Government provided Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 5,000 as compensation to each of the family (housed in relief centre) as compensation. But the beneficiaries used the amount to buy foodgrains. They get only 4 kg of rice, 4 kg of wheat, 1 kg of sugar and two litres of kerosene once in a month, which is not enough.

They get daily wage once or twice a week.

The families expressed their ire at MLA Raju Kage representing Kagwad, who, they alleged, never visited the camp.

“The officials too have no time to look into our problems and therefore, we do not know what to do, please tell the Deputy Commissioner to get us some job,” pleaded the families.

Did anybody in the administration hear that?

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