A Crying Shame

• In all the 14 villages under the drought-relief programme, the committee "observed that labour-displacing machines like tractors were used. In some works bulldozers, excavators were used." This despite orders of the rural development department that no machinery must be used to displace labour.
  
  
• Wages were not paid. Many villagers worked for as little as Rs 10 per day.
  
  
• Irregularities in foodgrains distribution. For instance, out of the 3,496 quintals of grains sanctioned for Vasvi, only 600 quintals reached the villages.
  
  
• Appointment of contractors were in "violation of Supreme Court orders".

• Muster rolls were "forged". The committee found fake entries of the dead receiving wages!When a team of researchers were dispatched to Barwani, armed with a letter from the Supreme Court's food commissioner, this is what Pati block's CEO told them: "What does the Supreme Court think of itself? If it sends anybody as a messenger, does it mean that we will show them official records?"

Purulia, West Bengal

Anuradha Talwar, Supreme Court- appointed food advisor, discovered the mess in Purulia. Food rations, allocated by the central government under the Antyodaya scheme, was not distributed and rotted in warehouses for two months. This deprived the 99,000 families in the district of grains due to what Mukul Sarkar, the district magistrate and collector, describes as "a technical fault."

Purulia as a district has some uncomfortable facts. Officially, it has 43 per cent of families living below the poverty line (BPL). Add the nearly 50 degree celsius heat in the summer and recurring drought and the picture is bleak.

Far away from Calcutta, the villagers here silently live out their private hell. Dipalidas Mahato, a resident of Parigela village, was helpless as she saw her husband die. "It is my fault that I could not feed him any rice. For me it was a choice between him and my two children." Dipalidas' claims are disputed by the district administration. A hunger death, they claim, is virtually impossible in a Left-run state.

A study conducted by Jamgoria Sevabratta, a local organisation, found serious flaws in the ongoing relief and hunger alleviation programmes:

• 792 persons in six blocks in the district eligible for foodgrains under the BPL scheme were refused cheap foodgrains because the village panchayat had already "completed" its quota of BPL families.
  
  
• There was no information available on any food-for-work scheme in any village in the district.
  
  
• A Supreme Court interim order was being violated because the panchayat offices and ration shops had not displayed the list of beneficiaries.