Mahadalit families in Bihar living in starvation

PATNA - Mahadalits, the poorest of the socially marginalised people in Bihar, are living in starvation in two villages in Gaya district due to the failure of food and work related government schemes, asserts a Supreme Court-appointed official.

“It is a reality that the poorest of the poor Mahadalit families are starving in two villages in Gaya district,” Harsh Mandar, a special commissioner to the Supreme Court commissioner to monitor the implementation of food-related schemes.

Mandar visited Tetua Tola Kharuna village and Vanvara village near Dobhi in Gaya district, about 100 km from here, to interact with the poorest Mahadalit residents there and verify a report saying at least 100 people had died of hunger in Bihar.

“I can say with responsibility that the poorest Mahadalits are forced to live in starvation as they are deprived of the benefits of government schemes,” Mandar told IANS.

The report of 100 people having died was filed by Rupesh, state adviser to the commissioner of the Supreme Court, but his claims were dismissed by the state government.

Mandar also met Gaya district magistrate Sanjay Kumar and other officials in this connection.

Rupesh, who also accompanied Mandar, said what stunned him were reports that one Murti Devi in her late 50s allegedly died of hunger Oct 10 in Kharuna village. Although the local administration denied that she died of hunger, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar ordered a probe.

They were shocked when told by villagers that they were not getting grain under the food- and work-related government schemes despite a hunger death last year.

Mandar will submit his report to the Supreme Court after visiting two more villages in February in Muzaffarpur and other districts, where people died of hunger.

Rupesh said the reports not only confirm the deaths due to hunger but “reveal the pathetic situation regarding implementation of food and social security schemes in Bihar”.

These schemes include the Integrated Child Development Scheme, the Midday Meal Scheme, the public distribution system, the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the National Maternity Benefit Scheme, the National Social Assistance Programme, the National Family Benefit Scheme and the Annapurna Yojana.

“Apart from major leakages and corruption, the coverage of government food schemes is so meagre that they leave huge holes in the social security net through which large numbers of most destitute people slip into starvation and hunger,” said Rupesh.

Bihar has been hit very badly by drought and floods. As many as 26 districts are drought-affected. Nearly 40 percent of Bihar’s 83 million people live below the poverty line, the highest in India, according to a World Bank report.

(Imran Khan can be contacted at imran.k@ians.in)