04 July: Both the teams left at
6.15 am after a cup of black tea that the hotel thoughtfully provided, and we separated after picking up an ITBP
soldier each from the camp. I had Mr. Neeraj as our driver and Mr. Suresh, an
ITBP soldier as our companion, along with Rahul and Bharati, my team mates. As
the car climbed through the hills, Bharati took ill, and we stopped quite a few
times, and at Thal for breakfast. When we reached Munsiyari at 12.30, our stay
had been booked at KMVN guest house, a government run building. The lady at the
front desk told us that the cost of the rooms would be 1250 per night. I was
surprised that it is pretty costly with the rooms not so well maintained, with
no AC etc. However, we thought of continuing to stay there. We visited the
Munsiyari block office and had a brief by the Addl. District Magistrate Dr. Raghav
Langer who was stationed there to coordinate the relief operations. He gave us
a lot of information verbally asked one of the block officers to give further
information to us in printed formats. As it was taking time, we thought of
collecting the information on the next day, have lunch now (it was 3.00 pm), so
that we can visit a village on the same day.
We asked Bharati to stay put at
the hotel since she wasn’t feeling well, and we three men (me, Rahul and
Suresh) proceeded to Madkot. Our journey to Madkot took over an hour, although
the distance was hardly 16 kms. The road had been damaged at several locations,
but it had been “mended”. When we crossed the river Gori just ahead of Madkot,
we saw the crumbling village. Its school and several buildings had been damaged
or gone in the water about 90 – 100 feet down the valley. We had discussions
with families, shopkeepers, the village leader and finally we visited also the
relief camp where 12 families whose houses had been fully damaged were living.
Madkot village is an entry point
to several other villages, and so it had lots of shops and the houses were well
built. My first impression was that the people of the village cannot be too
poor here. Purely looking at the houses, there were about 30% of families who
can be classified as poor, as other families lived on shops or jobs, and they
seemed to be better off. We were even surprised that there were two hotels in
the village! One of them was just on the river bed, and might be threatened
soon if the river doesn’t change its course, and the other was a lot more
interior and in a secure location.
The relief camp had been set up
on an abandoned building by a failed / attempted hydro power station in a
nearby location. When we visited the camp, we saw the place to be clean. After
a brief with the staff at the camp, we went to visit the families in the
camp. (I am not discussing programmatic
issues in this blog, because this is a personal one. And so such have been
presented in official reports. Only human stories and personal experience are
mentioned here.)
We saw a man on wheel chair, two
other men, few children and a old lady, and we started talking to them. Other
family members had gone into the village as they go about their normal work and
they return whenever they think off to come to stay at the camp. They had come
with all their properties as they saw the river beginning to eat up under their
houses. We saw dish antennas, parked cars, heaters and even power generators!
As I said earlier, many of these families were not poor. But nature had
punished them, and have been left homeless and landless now. The three
buildings in the camp had two floors each, and in each floor two families were
staying! So, well set!
Where politics steps in: We were
told that the local Member of the Legislative Assembly has told these families
not to quit the camp as this place is better secured, unless and until the
government gives them a better house! Arrogance of leadership.
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