The Report - North 24 Parganas

The Sardar family used to live in a place in Tongtola. But due to floods their landand house was all washed away and then Sardar’s late father bought this smallland and since then they have been living here. Santosh’s father had boughtthree bighas which was equally divided amongst the two brothers after theirfather’s death. Santosh’s house stands over one bigha of land and he has onlyhalf a bigha for cultivation. There is an acute shortage of water for the fields andSantosh has only one ‘shelo’ to go by. He has had a pond dug in his field underthe NREGA Project and that is helping him water his fields a little better.Santosh does not hope that his younger son will return to the village to settledown. He in fact told his younger son to remain in Tamil Nadu and establishhimself a little before getting married. The older son too makes a living out of theodd jobs that he does and Santosh and his wife manage a living by farming.He also says that he had requested the Panchayat to arrange an old agepension for him but they had rejected his plea on the grounds that he did nothave a voter’s identity card. Santosh says that when the voter’s identity cardconcept came into being he was already old and he had never got one. Heasks, “Then how am I to get my name on the voter’s list if they are not willing toinclude me?” He also says that he had a BPL ration card but he has been told bythe Panchayat that it has been turned into an APL card and therefore he wouldnot get the facilities of a BPL card holder. He says that he has been told sobecause he has a cemented house. “But I had to work very hard to build thishouse,” Santosh argues.One Sukumar Babu who lives in Nadia district comes to Bispur and is heading amovement to protest against the fact that the tribals of Bispur are not gettingwhat the Government is providing for them. He is spear heading the movementto save the tribals and Santosh Sardar is a part of that movement as he getssome help from that quarter in terms of forms and old age pension. It is a welfaremovement and Santosh hopes that the future is better for his sons.The Panchayat member from that area had come to Santosh and asked him tosign a letter and had explained how the pond would be dug in his field and howit could be used in the future. Santosh has a job card to his name but he did notwork on his own pond. In fact he was unable to work for more than a few daysdue to his old age. No one else from his family worked in his stead. It was dug inthe Bengali month of ‘baishak’ and Santosh is unable to say how much moneyhad been allotted for his pond. The board standing by the Santosh’s ponddeclares that it took the Panchayat fourteen thousand rupees to be dug butSantosh himself says that it would not have cost more than half the sum. He saysthat the Panchayat would know what they did with the rest of the money. When