A report on the status of flood victims in Bihar based on the visit of IIT Madras NSS Students to Saharsa and Madhepura in December 2008.

• Report on the issues caused by
  • Destruction caused by flood
  • Future impact of the flood
  • Relief work and some flaws in relief work
  • Disaster Management
  • What people think about the aid they are getting from the government and is it suffiecient for them
• Report on the condition of Education and the effect of flood on Education
  • The most fundamental reason for a poor education rate in Bihar
  • A good school
  • What NSS, IIT Madrasis going to do for the unlifting of Education in Bihar. More Details >>>

Makar Sankranti is a Hindu Festival which is organized on 14th of January every. It is also called as SAKRAT which is a holy festival. On this occasion people take special bath and donate some grains like chuda and some other grains to poor people and Brahmans and they only they take their food. As the festival falls off in January – it means the new crop paddy has come to farmer’s house. There are so many myths about it. Is din Dan – Punya Ka great importance hai. Actually the winter season is in peak as it is the end of December and the winter season ends by January. So people who have not taken bath for a long time due to the winter and cold, they take bath on this day. So people tell in winter season, ab sakrat me nahayoge!

On 6th January, A press reporter told me that 2 people died due to heavy cold (it was the time of heavy cold, shitlahari and foogy weather). So we thought to do something for winter cloths and blanket distribution. He has tried with some other people too. People are talking with sympathy but none was ready to do something. So I asked him to prepare a list of 200 needy people like handicaps, besahara, widows etc. I tried with my friends and sent them with winter cloths and blankets and asked them to fix a date for distribution which was on 14th January on the day of SAKRAT. When I reached the high school at Kinjer on this SAKRAT day, I had a great feeling to see the list and the people who worked in preparing the list. Really they have done a great job. The collected winter materials were distributed to the people listed.

Magistrate of Arwal district, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Civil SDO and some other officials were present at the venue and appreciated the program and the initiatives.

It is a matter of pleasure that in the next 3 days, the local MLA of Arwal also distributed 100 winter blankets to the poor and needy people.

The Flood Relief Action – Activists Meet was organized by Mr. Sanjay Kumar, our local collaborator in Khagaria. Also present were Dharmendar of AID Bihar, Shankar from Indus CreativeVision and Priya Ranjan from AID USA.

Rajesh Kumar, from Supaul addressing in the flood relief meeting,
whose heroic efforts had saved many lives.

This meeting was organized to discuss the feedback on North Bihar Flood Relief work led by Dharmendar and his collaborators. People from Supaul, Madhepura, Saharsa, Khagaria districts participated in this meeting in large numbers due to active local support.

This meeting was organized exactly after 4 months from the day the Kosi breached in Bihar on 18.08.2008.

The meeting started with inspiring poem in Maithili language by Shri. Dharmendra Verma – a well known poet in Madhepura. People came forward to share their experience and give their feedback and comments on the flood relief action and joint efforts of AID India, Goonj and Indus Creative Vision.

Some of the shared experiences and comments:

1. Shri Kamaleshwari, Alam Nagar
   • Witnessed many human dead bodies and cattle.
   • Organized medical camps with the help of AID India.
   • Appreciated the relief work, since it reached many people in an organized and peacefull manner including some of the poorest communities like Mushhars.
   
   
2. Enthusiastic volunteers like Nitish Kumar from Saharsa, AID volunteer Suneel who heads Madhepura office, Chandrasekar, who runs his own group in Saharsa and Anil Varma from Saharsa who are with the people on the field for the past 4 months shared and expressed their feelings. These volunteers had a sense of satisfaction during their service to some of the most unfortunate victims of flood. In fact, they form strong base of volunteers who can work tirelessly at the grass roots and they have managed to get a lot of things done.


3. Jagat Yadav, Kumarkhand
   • Witnessed many dead bodies been floating during flood.
   • Expressed heartfelt thanks to AID India, as it was the only organization which reached with relief materials and conducted medical camp in their village before the government had.
   • Demand: He kept big demands during this meeting to construct a big community hall in their village so that people can be sheltered in such disaters in future.
   
   
4. Dharmendra Verma, Poet from Madhepura
   He expressed his deep poetic feelings for the suffering people in flood zone and also blamed the administration in his poetic style.


5. Pavan Kumar, Madhepura District Coordinator, AID Bihar
   • Expressed his grief on the disaster emotionally.
   • Overwhelmed with anger on state government relief work and condemned government for announcing this flood as natural disaster rather accepting it as man made disaster and failure of administration in Bihar.
   • Made appeal to participants to know the reality and fight back for their rights.
   • Expressed his interest to work with AID India in a long term basis especially to enlighten people towards education.
   
   
6. Raman, Murliganj, Madhepura
   • A senior citizen and social activist helped AID India in distributing relief material in their village.
   • Expressed heartfelt thanks to AID India for providing blankets to victims of their village timely where no one has done much relief work especially for winter.
   • Interested to work with AID India for children and youth on education.
   
   
7. Akshudev, Madhepura, Kranti Club
   • A young person who came forward to share his house to use as store house and office for relief work at Madhepura district.
   
   
8. Seema, Madhepura
   • A girl from Madhepura district shared her experience of how her family members helped out in relief action.
   
   
9. Dr. Shivkanth, Pratapganj, Supaul
   • Was very much satisfied to work in the medical camps organized by AID India.
   
   
10. Priya Ranjan, AID US
    • Priya Ranjan spoke about the responsibilities of scientific and technical communities in intimating people about such calamities before they occur and installing alarms in right places so that lives and livelihoods can be saved. He also spoke about such human calamities in context of India declaring it an economic and IT superpower when some of its most vulnerable citizens are suffering under severe financial distress.

On the whole, the meeting was a huge success, where more than 200 people came to show their gratitude to AID India. This essentially puts more responsibility and raised more expectations on AID India to serve the people it claims to work for.