Villagers trapped between Kosi embankments await rehab

BHAPTIAHI (Supaul): Life, it seems, will never be the same for people living in villages sandwiched between the eastern and western Kosi embankments. Water seeping through the mega bunds has rendered them homeless and the government apathy has added to their woes.
Cross Supaul town to enter NH-57 across Bhaptiahi block around 7pm, and you find only bushes on the roadside and behind them a series of huts housing many families.These families built their huts six years back and live in dead darkness. These families are part of villages which got trapped between the two embankments, which were built to prevent floods. But these are among the 386 villages where water seeps through the two embankments during the monsoon almost every year. There are over 20 such villages under the Nirmail assembly constituency of Supaul district.
Life was different for them before the Kosi ravaged these villages in 2009-10. They were then living at Bananiya village under Saraigarh panchayat in Nirmali assembly constituency. They had farmlands on which they would grow paddy and wheat. But the floods forced them to flee and settle at the embankment under Chikni panchayat. “We were once landowners; now we have been rendered landless as well as homeless,” says Mohammed Ansari.
These families haven’t seen any rehabilitation measure being initiated for them. Every small, dingy hut is home to a family of six to seven members. There is no permanent source of livelihood, no electricity connection, no drinking water or sanitation facility. There’s a school on the other side of the national highway but most children don’t go to the school because many children have been killed due to accidents on the highway, says social worker Mohammed Hannan.
There is an ‘anganwadi’ centre, but it caters to 40 children only whereas the number of kids is more than thrice in that one tola alone. At least one male member of most of the families works in Delhi or Punjab as daily-wage worker. Currently at home, 16-year-old Ansari also works as a tailor in Delhi.
Their miseries can be understood from the fact that the government never recognised them as the ones displaced from Bananiya. Their voter ID cards, some of them made in the run-up to ongoing election, still carries their Bananiya address. In administrative parlance, they are referred to as illegal inhabitants of Chikni.
Few metres ahead of Chikni to the left lies another such village Itari. People cross the river daily at least twice on foot for farming in a small area and return to their huts. In terms of basic facilities, Itari is like Chikni. A government school runs in a hut, which is supposed to provide education up to Class VIII.
Many campaign jeeps and SUVs pass through the road these days and elections are the rare occasions when these people see any “political intervention” in their lives. “We even boycotted polls twice. But to no avail. Now we vote, but to no avail again,” says Ram Mandal Yadav.