Normalcy yet to return to Amphan-hit Bengal
KOLKATA: It has been three weeks since Cyclone Amphan blew the tin roof off Alok Mondol’s mud hut and shattered the river-facing wall, allowing water from the Dutta river to surge through and inundate Uttar Rangabelia, a village on Gosaba Island in the Sunderbans delta of West Bengal.
But the 56-year-old fisherman said the government-mandated compensation has still not reached him.
Mondol lost his house in May 2009 when cyclone Aila had pummeled the island but claimed that he had not received any money to rebuild it. This time, he is more determined. “Local political leaders say I have to part with ₹ 5000 if I want to get ₹ 20,000 from the state government. Only if I give them ₹5000, they will register my name,” said Mondol, who earns a living by catching crabs and tiger-prawn seedlings from the river. Roughly 125km away in Kakdwip, Animesh Das is battling the same problem.
“It all depends on the party. If the local MLA or MP know for sure that they will get votes from the village, the pace of relief work would increase. Else you will not even get proper relief leave aside development work. Our village is an example…the village now has one tube well while two are lying defunct,” said Das, a resident of Gobindarampur village.
Similar allegations have started being reported across south Bengal, which was worst hit by the cyclone on May 20. At Minakha and Deyganga in the North 24 Parganas district, villagers staged a protest last Friday alleging that they have not received any relief.
In Hingalganj, women staged a protest outside the block development office and villagers shouted slogans that no relief had reached them.
While touring cyclone-ravaged areas on Friday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee herself warned party workers against politicising relief work and said the party would not support anyone found indulging in corruption in the public distribution system. “She said that the party must not get involved in the relief work – leaving it to the administration – and that the relief for Covid-19 lockdown and cyclone Amphan must reach all victims, supporters of all parties,” said a Lok Sabha member who did not want to be named.
The Opposition parties demanded more transparency in relief work. “The Centre should appoint an agency or a team who can monitor the relief,” said Dilip Ghosh, president of the Bengal unit of the BJP.
The government dismissed the allegations as baseless. “It is the opposition who is raising such allegations. Local MLAs and MPs and the district administration including BDOs [block development officers] and SDOs [sub-divisional officers] are working on the ground to bring back normalcy,” said Javed Khan, state disaster management minister.
He added that the government was committed to investigating any complaint.