Visit to Flood Affected Villages in Navalagund Taluk,
Some Observations and Thoughts

A visit long overdue to understand the after effects of flood was made by me on 27th October 2009. We drove straight to the Tehsildar’s office in Navalagund. He was not in his chair, but was in the adjacent office working with a fleet of personnel drawn from the revenue department, agriculture department and education department. Everyone was busy writing checks. Several thousand (>35000?) were being issued. The young Thehsildar looked overworked but readily discussed the situation. The Thehsildar’s view points were like this.
1. Some of the villages witnessed worse floods during 2007 than this year.
2. Compensation could be given to villagers without people scrambling for it during 2007.
3. There is huge pressure from the people for compensation both for the damaged house and damaged crop. The people are mighty arrogant in their demand for compensation.
4. There are many cases where compensation was to be paid though there was no damage, due to pressure from people. . A lenient stand was taken to avoid any hardship for the deserving families leading to lack of rigour.
5. There are several incidences where the compensation was squandered off in drinking etc.
6. Some good Samaritans who opened Ganji Kendras on their own had to shut down the centres within a day as people who were not affected thronged the centres.
Just to demonstrate how people behave with officials he invited us to sit in his office with him in chair. Though we sat there for about 15 minutes, no such incidence took place. It is possible that the Thehsildar’s opinions were only view points from his experiences. However they did not look made up. A visit to Kongawad village (and villages en route to Kongawad) was made and following are the observations.
1. ತೆರೆ were crop damages to maize, onion and Jowar.
2. Chilly crop seemed to be doing OK as mature red chilly fruits were seen in the field. However farmers said that chilly was also affected.
3. Many of the fields without standing crops were ploughed for rabi.
4. Collapsed houses -as reported in the media- were by far not many in Naikanoor and Kongawad.
5. Harvested onion had at least one third portion discarded due to spoilage. Even the good portion may not fetch good price.
6. There could be severe fodder scarcity in the villages due to the damage to fodder yielding crops like jowar and maize.
7. Rabi crop which is important in the area may still do well if everything goes right.
8. A new village is being built in Kongawad and the site development by Land Army is on. Sites of 50X 30 are being laid out.
9. Kongawada was worse affected in 2007 than now. People feel that as the period was under president’s rule then, the government was not swift in responding. They had to fast and visit Jagadish Shetter on tractors to get the attention.
10. Shifting of the entire village to new village being built seems to be difficult as social aspects of the village like the hierarchy are not considered. As it is a very sensitive issue government is not in a position to handle those issues. Ultimately the new village in all likelihood will become an extension to the existing village.
11. One of the villagers said, “ This village cannot be shifted . It is sthira ( Permanent). We will use the new village when we need new housing to our children who get married”.
12. Efforts build the community to take care of situations like flood was not seen or haerd about during the visit. On the contrary all that has happened including the well intentioned help from the government and philanthropists have succeeded in breaking any semblance of self reliance, pride and good behaviour that make a community respectable. The damage due to this may be more long lasting than the ravages caused by the floods.
Initial thoughts on what could be done.....
1. Building a versatile community to take care of calamities need to be done and that seems the main solution. Unfortunately no one who matters seems to be thinking on those lines. Community organisation and preparing them to tide over situations like flood and draught is de rigueur. This is a painstaking work and needs to be taken up by people with integrity and perseverance who can at least create a few islands of excellence as models. Some live models need to be contemplated and worked on diligently. Human resource development will be of greater consequence than building infrastructure with the money available for rehab. Technologies with human face and of human scale have to be conceived for such areas to minimise effects of calamities.
2. Integrated farming with enterprise diversity comes to mind as a possible intervention that could build versatility of farming in these areas. Farms that were not affected adversely despite floods could be studied for replication.
3. Technologies that might be of use during calamities have to be identified and made available and made community owned. Social systems to take care of them is the most difficult to create and needs extra care.
4. Insurances for property and crop to be created and handled by the community.(No PRIs please)