A Visit to Bambarada Village and Meeting the BDOs

Dear Members,

As a part of Gender Community’s learning event in Puri, we visited the Bambarada village today. Our visit around the village and discussions with the villagers brought out three basic problems in this village: (a) Lack of drinking water, (b) lack of sanitation and provision of toilets particularly for women and (c) loss of livelihood of local people for a large part of the year. All three problems have a common link – severe water logging and flooding in the area.

 

Most parts of the village lie in low-lying area and are drained by rivers that are silted up thereby causing significant reduction in their carrying capacity - this results in annual widespread flooding (Photo 1). 

 

Unplanned construction of roads and embankments have made the situation worse and the drainage in this area is so poor that the flood water remains locked throughout the year thereby causing widespread waterlogging over the years. The problem is compounded due to back flooding from the Chilika Lake which brings saline water – this has completely routed the groundwater system and agriculture in this area. Most

tube wells (down to > 300meters) yield saline water (Photo 3) and people are forced to drink this water as there is no other source of fresh water. Some ponds that collect rainwater are not saline but the water is not suitable for drinking due to algal boom and water hyacinths and possibly some organic pollutants (see photo 2). A large part of agricultural land is now unusable due to waterlogging and soil salinity; some efforts to grow indigenous variety of rice that can stand flooding and salinity have yielded some results but the situation is far from satisfactory. As a result, almost the entire population of the village can

at best earn 3-4 months of living in a year through cultivation and they depend on employment in other villages and towns. This has shattered the social structure of the village and a large population has migrated over time – mostly younger generation leaving behind old people, women and children to live a miserable life.

Some ray of hope comes from the laudable efforts of the local community supported by local NGOs and UNDP. A community-based project on drainage renovation work (Photo 4) has helped to drain the waterlogged areas and also to bring fresh water to agricultural fields through lift irrigation during summer months.

 

A meeting with the block officials at the end of the day brought some more insights to the problems in this region. They believe that waterlogging and flooding in this region are age-old problems and the developmental works have had not much role to play in increasing the miseries of the people. Dredging of the river and the Chilika Lake have been done to reduce the flooding to some extent. Drinking water problem has been recognized and there is a plan to bring pipelines to supply fresh water. Surprisingly, there is no plan to arrest the precious rainwater and utilize this effectively for a sustainable solution for drinking water problem and also for flushing the groundwater system. We were also informed about a large scheme to build hundreds of household toilets in these villages for which work order should be issued in a month’s time. Unfortunately, the villagers themselves do not seem to have any knowledge of these schemes that might change their life for ever! On the other hand, we could observe the construction and raising of roads in full-scale, and at many places, they are being strengthened to serve as a flood embankment. Nobody in the villages seems to be excited about the roads except that these serve as their only refuge during floods.

 

I personally think that the priorities of the local administration should be relooked but at the same time community participation must increase. The laudable work done by some of the NGO’s have to be replicated at many places and this cannot be achieved unless the local administration and the communities work together.

 

Regards,

Rajiv Sinha, Professor in Geosciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur