Vijay Ram and his wife Shakuntala Devi do not possess pigs anymore. There was a time when this dalit couple had 30 to 35 pigs in their farm. All their pigs died. Ram now drives an auto-rickshaw and ekes out a living.
“Had our pigs survived our economy would have been far better,” said Shakuntala Devi. For pig farm this dalit couple took loan from their own relatives. The family is still under the burden of debt worth 50,000 rupees or so.
This dalit couple lives at Kala Pokhraha under Jamuney panchayat. The family has a 10 big cabin still ready to use for pigs with facilities like pucca floor, water tub, iron gate and each of the cabin is most spacious. There is a drainage too. But no pigs make this dalit couple sad.
Kishore Kumar Pandey, a civil society activist, said, “There came no financial help from the government. The result is that their pigs died. And now they are struggling.”
Pandey has urged the officials of Jharkhand state livelihood mission society (JSlMS) to help or bail out this dalit family as Pandey said under JSlMS there is a scheme for dalits who want to raise their pig farm.
DDC Palamu Sushant Gaurav said, “There is scheme for piggery and fund will not be any problem.”
District Programme Manager of JSlMS Kumar D B Singh on being contacted said, “We have a scheme worth only 28,000 rupees under which we give four female pigs and two male pigs.
Out of these 28,000 rupees 14,000 rupees are to be pooled in by the pig rearer.”
Singh further said that Shakuntla Devi is a member of the Sakhi Mandal set up at this village and hence she is entitled to get this benefit.
On the other hand Pandey asserted that Palamu district has a target of helping 1412 dalits who want to rear pigs but till date there has come only 538 applications. He said a large number of dalits do not know about this scheme. DPM Singh confirmed this.Further Pandey urged the DDC Palamu to hold a survey of dalits living in the dalit dominated pockets in Palamu to know what their requirement is.Shakuntala Devi showed her pg farm with well built cabins lying empty these days.
She said she had brought pigs from Ranchi and was too happy with them but tragedy began to strike her pig farm when new born pig babies started dying soon after the birth. Their mothers too did not live long thereafter, she said.