Report on Lady Slynn’s visit to flood affected areas of Murshidabad, West Bengal, India


As Chairman of CINI UK, I visited the flood affected areas of Murshidabad District, West Bengal, India, on 13th October 06, accompanied by Dr Samir Chaudhuri, Director, Child in Need Institute (CINI), India and his colleagues Mr Tushar Bhattacharya and Mr Abinash Gine, responsible for disaster management at CINI.

Almost 1.5 million people, living in the villages of Murshidabad District located 150 kms north of Kolkata, were displaced due to rising flood waters of the Bhagirathi river and its tributaries. This was caused by incessant rain for over a week in the area since mid September. The villagers took shelter on high ground such as local school buildings, railway stations and high embankments. CINI joined the local government’s relief measures and started distribution of emergency of dry food, shelter material, water purifying tablets, bleaching powder and medicines to treat the outbreak of gastro-intestinal diseases in the temporary camps.

CINI has been working in the area since 1998, implementing various programmes to improve health, nutrition, education and disaster preparedness, as Murshidabad is very prone to annual flooding. Moreover the district is poor, with a high illiteracy rate and a history of trafficking children for domestic labour, to supply the demands of well-off citizens of Kolkata. The CINI Murshidabad Unit is staffed by 18 young men and women, most of them trained social workers who implement various developmental projects funded by government and national and international donors. CINI responded to the emergency as most of those affected were the villagers who are helped through these projects. CINI sent out an appeal to its international partners-CINI UK, CINI Italia, CINI Holland and Friends of CINI, Glasgow-for the Murshidabad flood relief effort. Funds collected were used for emergency distribution of medical supplies to prevent the outbreak of communicable diseases and to build at least one flood shelter in a local school for local villagers.

After a five-hour train journey from Kolkata, we set out from Berhampore by car and later by boat to reach Satui Chowrigacha, a group of badly affected villages normally approachable by road. Floodwaters had risen ten feet over the present level of 3 to 5 feet. These waters will take at least two weeks more to recede completely. Meanwhile the villagers had started returning home, cleaning and repairing the damage to their houses, as best they could. Being landless, most of the villagers are employed as agricultural workers. For almost a month, they have been unable to work, some of them trying to catch fish in the flood waters which escaped from local ponds

I visited the village of Santosh Nagar and talked to the villagers who received the medical emergency supplies from CINI. With my colleagues, I distributed the daily quota of medical supplies- water purifying tablets and anti diarrhoea tablets- to over 200 people belonging to 38 families living in the village. During the distribution, talking to the father of Abhijit Mondal, a one and half year boy, I found out that the family’s house had been so badly damaged that they were currently living with relatives. Being a landless labourer, he does not have an income and was presently engaged in repairing the family hut.

The grandmother of an 11 day old baby boy Sangram Mondol, invited me to visit her home in the village. The baby, born on the nearby railway station where they had sheltered during the floods, had been delivered by a birth attendant present at the time! The villagers, evacuated by boats given by the government for rescue purposes, had been taken to the railway station located on a high ground embankment. The newborn baby had an eye infection and a slightly moist umbilical chord. On return to Berhampore, medicines were purchased for the baby and sent back to the family. The child’s progress would be monitored by the local CINI worker.

We discussed the local requirements for both emergency and rehabilitation purposes with the villagers and the local Panchayat (village committee) leader. It will be now necessary for the CINI team to assist the villagers in the process of short term and long term rehabilitation efforts, such as the building of flood shelters, apart from their health, nutrition and educational improvement programmes.


Odile Slynn,
Chairman, CINI-UK
15th October 06

 

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