Jagatsinghpur revisited

While food-for-work programmes, especially those run by voluntary agencies, have so far played an important part in rebuilding lives in the devastated areas of Orissa, there is a need to restore sustainable means of livelihood.

A VISIT to Padampur village in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district is a grim reminder of the destruction caused by the "super cyclone" of October 1999. Padampur panchayat, comprising 23 blocks, had lost a large number of people in the devastation caused by t idal waves, the worst affected being Sankha block, where 600 out of 800 residents died. Local residents say that only those who could get to the solitary cyclone shelter in Padampur and those who managed to stay on treetops while the panchayat went under flood waters survived.

The cyclone caused the destruction of the entire livelihood base of the people. One and a half years after the disaster, vast expanses of agricultural land remain barren; there are no coconut or cashew trees, and there is no evidence of cattle. It is cle ar that few efforts have been made to start the process of reconstruction in the area.

Padampur typifies the distress of villages in the entire cyclone-hit coastal region, comprising Ersama and Balikuda blocks of Jagatsinghpur district. This was among the richer areas of the State before the cyclone struck. It had two sources of wealth: ex ternal trade in non-farm produce such as betel leaves, coconut, fish, prawns and cashew; and the production of milk and rice, of which it was the largest producer in the State. However, the region depended more on external trade, the Paradip port being i ts nodal point. The local producers were at the lower end of the trading network; they sold their produce to local traders who sold these to companies. The companies sold them outside the area.

In the aftermath of the cyclone, Paradip port was the first to be restored to normalcy. However, several occupations that the people depended on had disappeared. A survey conducted by the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti and Action Aid India after the relief op erations were initiated showed that apart from agriculture, plantations, cattle and boats were the most severely affected. Since the measures taken for the reconstruction of the sources of livelihood were inadequate, the vulnerability of the people to ex ploitative relations of production has increased significantly.

The challenge of reconstruction lies mainly in ensuring equitable distribution of benefits and creating village-level infrastructure. This could be done only if the problems arising from the cyclone are addressed up front. One of the major problems cause d by the inundation of land by tidal waves was the contamination of water and the salinisation of land. This has had a direct impact on the productivity of low-lying lands. Last January the Krishi Vigyan Kendras of the Central Rice Research Institute, Cu ttack, distributed some salt-tolerant seed varieties to farmers in select villages. However, the harvest was poor.

A Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report said that Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara districts would face their worst-ever food crisis, with the production of cereals and pulses falling by 4,000 million tonnes after the cyclone. It forecast that the p rices of foodgrains supplied through the public distribution system (PDS) would go up by 50 per cent by June 2000 if appropriate measures were not taken to revive agriculture in the region. In most regions the crop failed not only in June 2000 but in the following season. Even today there is little evidence of any extension work in the area, and this threatens food security in the region.

Land salinity too has affected food security. The extent of damage varies with the distance of the village from the coast and the number of days the field remained inundated by salt water. Farmers say that there was no chance of low-lying lands of villag es like Padampur yielding a tonne of rice an acre (the yield before the cyclone havoc). They also say that their agricultural system might recover only if the rains are good for the next two or three years or if sweet water is made available to them. The y want the government to build bunds on the seashore in order to prevent the ingress of seawater into their fields. Padampur is only a kilometre from the coast. Even villages that are up to 5 km from the coast face the problem.

People of Lacchimpura in Chatua panchayat, 3 km from the coastline, complain that no attempt has been made to rejuvenate the ponds or nalas in the area. As a consequence, the lands are dry and full of fissures. The paddy crop has withered. It cann ot be used as fodder because almost the entire cattle population in the area was wiped out in the cyclone. The milk economy shows little sign of recovery. All other avenues of seasonal employment are closed because coconut and cashewnut plantations have been uprooted and samplings planted will take between five and 10 years before they bear fruit. Only some indigenous tree species like jhau withstood the cyclonic winds. Used as fuel, jhau is not considered commercially valuable.

In this desperate situation, the people of Ersama and Balikuda blocks still depend on food-for-work programmes that are mostly run by voluntary agencies. A government circular had said that its food-for-work programme would be in force only until March 2 000, after which reconstruction and rehabilitation work would start. The United Nations and the government worked in tandem, working out and coordinating rehabilitation plans during end-1999. They also developed the concept of "lead NGOs" in each gram pa nchayat in order to avoid duplication of work. In many cases the government and allied agencies made plans that were donor-based, that is, they concentrated on restoring the infrastructure and providing one-time assistance for reconstruction by individua l householders. This meant that in the event of failure of any restoration strategy based on this one-time support, individual producers would be responsible for that. This strategy goes to prove that the government has shown little interest in solving t he long-term problems caused by the cyclone.

The agricultural sector provides a classic example of the impact of such support. The government claims that it distributed seeds to farmers in the last kharif season. It has also stated that it dug tubewells in order to provide sweet water for irrigatio n. However, farmers claim that the crops failed. The lands lay fallow for the next three or four months. Consequently, voluntary agencies working in the area were forced to continue their food-for-work programmes.

There was little attempt to bring expertise into the area in order to solve the problems of salinisation of land and contamination of groundwater.

According to official figures, 13.50 lakh hectares of paddyfields were affected by the cyclone. Assuming that half that area remains saline even now, the task of conducting large-scale experiments, finding a solution for salinity and disseminating the me thods to farmers cannot be taken up by individual agencies. The people of Padampur believe that the restoration of agricultural production will take two or three years. They have started looking for new occupations, the most obvious alternative being pra wn farming. Data collected by the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti show that in Padampur panchayat about 352 acres (140.5 hectares) of land in nine blocks has been diverted to prawn cultivation.

The conversion of agricultural land can spell disaster for the region in the long run. First, both local people and experts agree that prawn cultivation would increase the salinity of the land and make the surroundings sandy and marshy. The land cannot b e cultivated again, leading to a decline in paddy production over a period. Secondly, the new production relations that this conversion entails are even more exploitative than the old ones. The most prominent change is the way in which big companies have begun to dominate the farming community. A farmer from Padampur said that a Bhubaneswar-based company gave farmers food in return for their labour in prawn farms. The work includes catching wild prawns from the sea, building bunds and providing after-ca re, which is necessary for breeding. The companies bear the cost of the feed and the materials that are necessary for prawn rearing and for bunding. They sell prawns at a high price of Rs. 400-500 a kg. There are instances of big farmers from Padampur bu ying or leasing lands from small farmers and getting the latter to do prawn farming for them. In effect, small farmers are becoming landless labourers. Another section that has taken up prawn farming are farmers whose lands have turned barren. These farm ers sell their produce to local middlemen who, in turn, sell them to companies. The price they receive from middlemen covers just the labour costs.

Increasing exploitation is evident in the patterns of credit that have emerged after the cyclone. The survey conducted by Action Aid India in Ersama block showed that the levels of indebtedness and the number of wage labourers have increased, especially among the members of the Scheduled Castes, landless labourers and small farmers. Now they take an advance from traders to rebuild their houses, buy boats or restore betel vine plantations, and this ties them down to exploitative relations of production. This pattern of credit is in sharp contrast to the practice of mortgaging articles, which was prevalent in the period prior to the super cyclone.

Given this situation, there is an urgent need to restore sustainable means of earning livelihoods. So far food-for-work programmes, especially those run by voluntary agencies, have played an important part in rebuilding some of the community assets. This has also resulted in some amount of social engineering. For example, the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti, along with Action Aid India has managed to mobilise people into Punar Nirman Samitis (reconstruction committees) in 350 hamlets. Elsewhere youth clubs ha ve sprung up with the help of NGOs, like the Committee for Legal Aid for the Poor. But all these efforts will go waste if the people are not aided to reconstruct their sources of livelihood in a sustainable manner. The greatest challenge therefore is not only to initiate the process of livelihood restoration, but also to organise people and demand that the government take up this task.

Archana Prasad is a social scientist who is associated with the All India People's Science Network.