Nation»
Closure of food for work programme affects Kamaiyas
LALMATIYA, JAN 08 - After the Food for Work Programme for this district came to a halt, the lives of many Kamaiyas have been in the doldrums since they lack alternative means of sustaining their families.
Though 175 Kamaiyas within the Kalika Community Forest in Lalmatiya VDC-4 of Dang district were declared free Kamaiyas three years ago, with the assurance of various amenities of life that would be provided to them, so far only 10 Kamaiyas of this region have been able to avail of simple homes as shelter.
According to Freed Kamaiyas Mishra Chaudhary and Jaggu Chaudhary, upon closure of the Food Programme for Work with which they had been somehow sustaining their families through the ongoing harsh period, they are left with no option but to return to their previous places where they had been working for various landlords.
Tek Bahadur Rawat, the chairman of the Mukta Kamaiya Samaj of Dang, observes, though the government has provided the freed Kamaiyas with land which is mostly barren and unproductive, and arranged some form of shelter, the government has not been thoughtful of arranging employment for them which is very essential for their livelihood.
According to another freed Kamaiya, Garbhu Chaudhary, some of the freed Kamaiyas of Lalmatiya who have been facing difficulty in providing even a square meal for their family members have started sending their children to the service of their landlords, called Maghi, and have even taken rice-grain from their masters in return for this service contract.
Kaliprasad Chaudhary laments that though the government is learnt to have been spending hundreds of thousands of rupees on them, they have not been able to provide them with permanent employment, or any form of stable income-generating work.
According to the information provided by the chief engineer Birendra K.C. of the Rural Community Infrastructure development programme under the Food Programme that since this Food Programme for Work for Banke and Dang district came to a close from last December, the life of the freed Kamaiyas here has been miserable with hunger rife among their families.
It is not known yet whether this food programme will be continued again for this region, maintained K.C.
Some of the Kamaiyas are of the view that even though there are many NGOs working for their cause, nothing substantial has been done, and there is no account of the hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in as aid under their name.
Headlines
Advertisements
