Plastic tents on shaky dykes — Bengal’s Amphan-hit villages are waiting for help 60 days on

Amid corruption charges over the relief package in West Bengal after Cyclone Amphan, villagers in the Sundarbans area are still living without water and electricity.

Villagers walking on a broken dyke in Bainara village in Hingalganj, North 24 Parganas. | Photo: Madhuparna Das/ThePrint

Hingalganj, North 24 Parganas: It rained incessantly as the sun set on Bainara village on 20 May. Abinash Baidya rushed to his home near a concrete dyke along the Dansha river. But as water kept gushing in, Baidya left with his family to reach the nearest pucca road 2 km away. When he returned, the dyke had fallen and his home was cut off.

Baidya found trees, boats, cattle and paddy floating in and around the village, he told ThePrint. “At night, we could not see a thing… We could see only when lightning flashed across the sky,” he said.

This was the situation as Cyclone Amphan wreaked havoc across the southern districts of West Bengal, killing over 100 people and causing economic devastation to the tune of more than Rs 1 lakh crore.

Now, two months later, Baidya’s is one among 300 families that has been living on an unstable embankment along the Sundarbans delta region in the Hingalganj block in the North 24 Parganas district.

Amid announcements of a relief package worth Rs 6,250 crore and a major row over scams related to it, these families can see their houses that have been cut off, but cannot reach them through the breached embankment. They are living in makeshift houses, built with plastic sheets and bamboo, with no supply of drinking water and electricity. The situation is the same in villages in nearby areas of the Sundarbans too.

On Wednesday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that 99 per cent of relief work has been completed as she sought to quell the criticism over the alleged scam that funds — Rs 20,000 each for affected families — were diverted to Trinamool Congress workers and their families in the beneficiaries list prepared by the state government.

“Our government has no intention to deprive anyone. Initially, there were some mistakes while making the beneficiary list for the Amphan relief package. But some political parties are doing unnecessary politics on this. Some media houses have also joined hands with them,” Banerjee said in Kolkata.

Asked if the relief funds have reached these villages in the Hingalganj block, district magistrate Chaitali Chakrabarti said her office would get the present status in the area and take action.

What the situation is now

Over the past month, the villagers in North and South 24 Parganas districts, which were the worst affected, have taken part in hundreds of protests, alleging that TMC panchayat pradhans and members have included the names of their family members and acquaintances as beneficiaries of relief funds.

Prabhas Raptan, a fisherman in Bainara said, “In June, we submitted a list of villagers with documents of damages with the panchayat office. A month passed since then, but nothing happened. Two weeks back, we again went to the Hingalganj block office and submitted a fresh list. Nobody in our village got any compensation money.”

Raptan’s house was completely swept away by the floods caused by the cyclone. His crop land now resembles a damp swamp.

“Didi said that 99 per cent of people have money. But none of us got it. Will we ever get it?” asked Dulal Mondal, a farmer in the Dhaniakhali village in the North 24 Parganas district. His crop land is still submerged, and the house has collapsed.

In the Rupamari panchayat area in the same district, the villagers allege that they applied for financial assistance a month ago, but their names did not feature in the beneficiary list.

The visuals of devastation are visible in these Sundarbans hamlets, where the remains of collapsed houses, mud-filled roads, broken trees and lamp posts create an impression that the cyclone has only just passed.

Villagers living in makeshift structures built with plastic sheets and nylon ropes on the breached embankment in Hingalganj. Photo: Madhuparna Das/ThePrint

ThePrint had traveled to some villages in the Sundarbans area just after Cyclone Amphan struck. The scenes now haven’t changed much, with villagers still having no supply of drinking water and electricity. There is also the constant fear of being swept away by the river during high tides.

The corruption admission 

The Amphan package has been mired in controversies over the alleged scam in the state.

Now, ThePrint has accessed a government document on the Kalitala panchayat in the North 24 Parganas district, which showed that at least 11 relatives of a panchayat member and nine relatives of a local TMC leader had received funds of Rs 20,000 each. Most of them have concrete houses in the same panchayat area.

ThePrint reached the panchayat pradhans of Rupamari and Kalitala but they declined to comment.

Trinamool MLA Debesh Mondal admitted to corruption and delays in giving funds to genuine victims in Hingalganj, saying he has already “cracked the whip” on panchayat pradhans to return the money. He said he has already got Rs 5 lakh back from 25 members of such panchayats.

“I have directed the panchayat pradhans to make a fresh list of 14,000 beneficiaries, who were wrongly excluded from the list… But we have rejected all claims now, and the ones that were wrongly issued have to be returned to us. Many of them are returning by cash to the DM office or by cheque to the bank,” added Mondal.

“Rupamari is the worst affected area. The villagers who suffered partial damages in their houses have got money. The houses which were destroyed fully will also be rebuilt. We will release the money for the beneficiaries soon. It is taking a bit of time as we are making new lists,” he said.