Paddy is burnt at Nadi Par under Satbarwa block. This crop belongs to Mana Manjhi. He has left this paddy un-harvested as it is worth now straw only.
There are similar patches of paddy gone wasted all around Palamu. Some patches have spectacular paddy but the overall scenario is drifting towards bleakness. Drought is slow but steady in Palamu. It is worrying the poor and the farmers. Sakunta Devi lives at Badlaya Tola under this Satbarwa block. She ekes out her living by selling fish that she catches from a nearby river. She earns Rs 60 to 90 a day if she catches fish and the hotels in Satbarwa buy it as well otherwise she cooks the same fish for her family.
This coming drought she is most anxious. A team of Congress leaders led by Palamu district Congress committee Jeyesh Ranjan Pathak alias Bittu Pathak on Thursday visited this hamlet and saw the ground reality there. The team had senior members like Ishwari Pd Singh, Chhotu Singh, Avinash Gupta Fauji (district head of Congress Seva Dal) Chhotu Pathak (president sadar block Congress) and Ramzan Ansari Satbarwa block president of Congress.
Bittu Pathak said, “Lack of developmental schemes in hamlets is a serious thing. There is no scheme here in these Harijan hamlets namely Nadi Par and Badlaya Tola. There is no road to these hamlets when these are just within one and a half kilometer away from NH 75.”
He said, “What this woman is saying that she sells fish to keep her family going is to be taken most seriously in times like drought when the BJP led State Government has been quick enough to declare whole of Palamu as drought hit but a mere lip service in declaring it as drought hit will not be of any relief unless village related schemes here are not started.”
The road here can be made motorable which will create employment. There is no surface water management here when this hamlet is located some what at tarn a kind of high land unfit for paddy demanded Pathak. He said Savita Devi built a shouchalaya with her own hard cash but till date she has not been given any payment out of 12,000 that comes per unit of IHHL (individual house hold latrine). When this newspaper asked her as to why her shouchalaya is without any door fixed to it Savita Devi said, “I pooled in all my savings for it. This is without door. Jal Sahiya Preeti Gupta asks me to install the door but I have no money left now for this.
This shouchalaya is no abandoned by us for want of money as if it is given to me I will fix door to it.”