Asia ReView

Akshaya Kumar Sahoo

For Basant Mallick, a sharecropper of Ajrunpur under Garadpur block in Kendrapara district, suffering has become a hard reality. His wife Sabita Mallick died on October 29, 1999 while giving birth to her baby at home — the concrete wall of the house, failing to withstand the 300-km per hour wind speed of the supercyclone — collapsed on her. She died on the spot while the new-born had a miraculous escape.

Basant picked up the infant from concrete rubbles, named the new-born as Varsha (rain) and decided to provide her good education. The child is now nine-year-old and pursuing her studies in the village primary school. But the devastation caused by the recent high floods in the Mahanadi and its branches has broke Basant’s backbone. He has lost paddy crops he raised in five acres of land. He has decided to stop sending Varsha to school and migrate to Kolkota or Surat to eke out a living. "I’m totally shattered. Now I am unable to feed my child, my handicapped brother and widowed mother. Under this situation, it’s impossible on my part to meet my daughter’s educational expenses," says Basant. Uttam Mallick of the neighbouring Madhu Sasan village is another sharecropper. He is also sobbing in silence.

Uttam had great expectations this year: he was overwhelmed to see thick bunches of ripe paddy waving in the field and hoped to make a good profit. "Now, all my hope is gone. I’m totally ruined," he adds. Himanshu Sekhar Tarania of Pundilo village under Palasudha panchayat is also hit hard by the flood. "My house collapsed. The paddy crop is gone. I’m left with no option other than begging. I don’t think I will be able to afford my children’s tuition fees," he rues.

Besides Basant, Uttam and Himanshu, thousands of farmers in the state have suffered huge losses due to the flood fury. With agriculture — the mainstay of their income — destroyed, they are in great distress. They do not see any divine intervention in sight to help them. Nor do they expect any practical approach from the state government to stand by them in this hour of crisis. Their pessimism stems from the fact that the state government has not acted on its commitment of launching a long-term strategy to protect human habitats and agricultural lands from recurrent floods and rains.

Lack of drainage system allows waterlogging in the field for weeks, resulting in crop loss.

The traumatic condition of the farmers can be measured from the extreme step taken by Mali Behera, a 68-year-old farmer of Saharadia village in Jagatsinghpur district. Unable to bear the shock of crop loss in the flood, he ended his life by consuming poison took on September 28. Mali had raised paddy on eight acres of land after obtaining a loan of Rs 40,000 from a village moneylender and Rs 30,000 from Jagannath Cooperative Society at Kujang to purchase paddy seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. But the flood ruined his hope to sustain his family of eight people.

The deceased farmer had lost about 10 quintals of paddy stored in his house to the floods, informs Zillanasi sarapanch, Murali Swain.

According to an official estimate, over four lakh hectares of paddy crop has been destroyed by the floods in Orissa where over 70 per cent of the population is dependant on agriculture for a living. "I was planning to repay a loan of Rs 20,000 that I had taken from the local bank but now every thing is lost," says Kalandi Sahu, a farmer of Arjunpur village under Sana Adhanga gram panchayat.

The situation is almost similar in Bolangir, Kalahandi, Boudh, Sonepur, Kendrapada, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Puri and Bhadrak.

As the weather was conducive, the government was expecting a bumper kharif paddy crop this year. The state government had distributed about 3 lakh quintals of paddy seeds to farmers compared to last year’s 1.64 lakh quintals.

"We had targeted to produce about seven million tonnes of paddy but the flood has unsettled our estimate," says Arabinda Padhi, state agriculture sector.

According to the official sources, over 4.68 lakh hectares of cropped area has been damaged by the flood waters. The figure would go up after the flood water retreats and an actual assessment is made.

The state government has announced a compensation of Rs 4,000 per hectare of irrigated land, Rs 2,000 per hectare of non-irrigated land and Rs 6,000 for sand inundated crop land. It has also promised to supply sufficient canal water to the farmers for Rabi crops and repair all the lift irrigation points. However, all such governmental sops are not going to give any relief to the sharecroppers who are mostly unregistered. "The government-announced pa-ckage for the farmers will benefit to those who have lands. What about us? We do not have any land. As a sharecropper, I had grown paddy in five acres of land in my neighbour’s field. Now, he will get the benefit while I bore the actual loss," says Ragunath Mallick of Madhu Sasan.

Hundreds of sharecroppers in the state said they had totally lost their standing paddy crop. They apprehended worse days ahead if the government did not announce special compensation package for them.

"It is high time the state government thought to do some thing for the sharecroppers since they constitute a major chunk of farming community. Overlooking their claims will be a social injustice," says Madhusudan Rout, sarpanch of Palasudha gram panchayat under Garadpur block.

In 2001, chief minister Naveen Patnaik had announced to come out with a long-term action plan for flood control. But nobody knows the present status of that plan. The government is also maintaining a discreet silence over this. How can Orissa overcome devastations caused by recurrent natural calamities? "Orissa needs an agriculture strategy," says Union secretary for agriculture research and education Dr Mangala Rai.

"Climatic changes have posed new challenges to agriculturists and it is time to develop suitable strategy for sustainable agriculture and increased productivity," he maintains. Mr Rai stresses on the establishment of specialised institutions on biotic stress management, abiotic and biotechnology to manage pests, salinity and acidity of soil, gene transfer, calamities and to increase production.

The biotic stress management institute, as Dr Rai points out, would work solely for controlling insects, pests and fungal problems while the abiotic institute could deal with problems caused by natural calamities. He informs that of the 12 hottest years during the last century, 10 already figured in the last decade. While seven million hectares of cultivable land suffered from the problem of salinity, nearly 25 million hectares are adversely affected by soil acidity.

Noted environmentalist Biswajit Mohanty says satellite technology and geographic information system (GIS) mapping should be used to study the floods to identify the historical flood plains and natural drainage channels though which the flood waters seek to escape. While rebuilding the embankments, there should be spillways on the banks at strategic points where breaches have been noticed to allow flood waters to escape after a certain level so that the high water pressure does not force the river to breach embankments downstream and causes utter devastation, he observes.

"Most of the damage this year was caused by the ferocity of the high currents which were created by the pressure build-up due to extra high embankments aggravated by increased height of river levels due to the unreleased silt load," points out Mr Mohanty.