The Report - North 24 Parganas

21. RADHAKANTA GAYENNREGA has increased options in animal husbandry and cultivationRadhakanta Gayen is 62 years old and his wife’s name is Kanti Gayen who is inher late forties. Both of them have four children and all of them have beenmarried and received primary school education in their teens. The family’s majorsource of income is from farming. Radhakanta and his sons, all work together onthe fields. The family owns about 6 bighas of land – initially they had two andlater they earned four from distribution of pattas. However, all this propertydoesnot belong to Radhakanta alone. Radhakanto and his four other brothershave equal share on the land.“I think being able to arrange for two square meals a day and having a healthydiet is more than enough for a good life.” Radhakanto had sufficient earningsand work until very recently when he suffered a kidney attack and washospitalised for more than three months. Thereafter almost Rs.60000 to Rs.62000has been spent on treatment and medicinal costs. The entire money has beenloaned out for expenses and Radhakanto has only been able to return abouttwenty five to twenty six thousand to his lenders.Radhakanto moans having left a secure job that he had found in the irrigationdepartment in the ‘70s. The need for money in the family is at a very acute level.He says, “If I had continued with the job, I would have been able to providemore education to my children. My sons however were not willing to bear thecost of my expenses during my illness. So I had to mortgage my wife’s propertyand that way I barely managed. My daughters are doing well but they are alsoworking on job cards.”Radhakanto has not been included in the BPL category however. Despite lot ofprotests, he has been included as APL. This has hurt his financial conditions aswell.Radhakanto says that there is extreme scarcity of water and so his agriculturalyields have not been adequate this year. However with 100 days of work a pondhas been excavated. Now there are two ponds in the village. “Without theponds we could only produce rice in the fields but now we have lot ofvegetables – for example, tomatoes, bitter guard, ladies finger etc.” Additionally,lot of vegetables are produced near the land adjacent to the ponds.Radhakanto and his wife do the vegetable cultivation themselves. Besides theyhave also sometimes been working on the job card. In 2008, he could only workfor 16 days despite having 100 days of work.