Maya JUST doesn’t care

The Mayawati regime approved of Rs 556 crore for construction of parks and statues, but allocated only Rs 250 crore for drought relief. Even that money is not reaching as helpless people starve in drought-hit UP
Pradeep Kapoor Lucknow

The Uttar Pradesh government has declared 57 out of 70 districts drought-affected. But, ironically, the state government which approved Rs 556 crore for construction of parks and statues (including that of Chief Minister Mayawati) allocated only Rs 250 crore for drought relief. Moreover, this Rs 250 crore was obtained from the central calamity fund through supplementary grants during the recently concluded session of the UP assembly.

According to Congress legislature party leader, Pramod Tewari, if Rs 250 crore is divided among the 16-crore people in UP, it would work out to only four paisa per day per person. "On the contrary, the Mayawati government spent Rs 80 lakh on erecting the statue of each elephant - a totally unproductive expenditure. Hundreds of such elephants are being constructed all over the state," said Tiwari.  Elephant is the BSP symbol.

A series of farmer suicides and starvation deaths have been reported. Take for instance the heart-breaking case of Ramesh, a farmer in Mehrauni tehsil in Lalitpur district of Bundelkhand. Drought caused severe financial crisis in his family. Even as they battled to survive, debts kept piling up. Unable to take it anymore, his wife committed suicide. She jumped into the village well with their two children. It was then that officials rushed to the village. But the purpose of their visit was sinister: they mounted pressure on Ramesh to deny that the deaths were due to drought.

Earlier, Govind, another farmer in Lalitpur, and Pratap Singh of Etawah, had committed suicide propelled by the financial crisis caused by drought.  Singh was a BPL card holder. He had two bighas of land and a family consisting of four daughters, two sons and an ailing wife. He worked as a labourer but his earnings were not enough to support his family. The district administration is not willing to accept that Singh committed suicide due to the financial crisis and drought.

Chhamadar, a 71-year-old farmer of Tehrauli in Jhansi district, also committed suicide clearly due to drought and severe monetary crisis. He had borrowed Rs 1.25 lakh from a local money lender for his granddaughter's marriage. This year, he had sowed til (sesame seed) in his two bigha land but drought killed the crop. His son migrated to Delhi in search of a job. Also, Chhamadar's widow complained she was not getting old-age pension for quite some time now. Meanwhile, an abjectly apathetic district administration is still 'probing' the suicide.

Local MP and Union Minister of State for Rural Development Pradip Jain visited Chhamadar's home. He gave Rs 20,000 to the family of the deceased. He faced a barrage of complaints from farmers in the village. They complained that they were given job cards two years ago but they have not been given work under NREGS. They alleged large-scale corruption. Jain admitted that he had received reports of several drought-related suicides in the Bundelkhand region.

Though the suicides reported are due to financial crisis caused by drought in UP, the state government is brazenly denying this truth. District officials trot out a stock reply that the real cause of the suicides is not drought. Villagers, however, know the harsh reality. They are battling drought each day.