Lucknow: After walking 30 km from Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, on the Sitapur National Highway, when we move forward on the Mall Road, there is less movement of people and vehicles. As we move ahead, the traffic on the road seems to be decreasing and the flood water is increasing. After moving about five kilometers on this route connected to Lucknow-Sitapur National Highway, police personnel KK Bharti and Siddharth and some villagers are seen sitting. There are women and children also among them. Most of these men and women are returning to their homes after Rakshabandhan.
The long wait for the boat to reach your home is visible in front.
The villagers, who were waiting for a boat to take them to their village Bahadurpur-Sultanpur surrounded by flood water, were talking to each other about when the flood water would recede and when this road would be opened. When “BollywoodWallah” started talking about the flood situation in the midst of mutual discussion among the villagers, then everyone’s expressions became such as if we had put salt on any of their wounds. I was angry, because of that arrangement, she was making tall claims of flood relief. Regarding those media reports which are telling ‘all is well’.
“Let the accountant see, we will die now.”
The only means of reaching Sultanpur and Bahadurpur villages of Sultanpur Gram Panchayat is by boat. The population of this panchayat, surrounded by water on all sides, is about three thousand. Only three boats have been provided by the administration. Naumi Lal, a member of Sultanpur Gram Panchayat and chairman of the water management committee of the panchayat, says, “The road is closed, women are facing problems, Rakshabandhan is on, how can it last, many women are coming and going, the administration is not doing anything. And sir, three boats were found inside two villages, we have a very high population there. Koi lekhpal ai video ai Tabtau hum bawalb, hum apne ghar bachai ki video called. Complete loss has been done sir, 90 percent loss has been done, the paddy has been old for eight days, let the accountant check, we will die now.” Saying this, Naumi Lal tells in one breath what the villagers trapped in the village due to flood are saying. Kind of upset.
This time it should be done, this is our request to the government
The help that is being provided by the government in different ways for the flood affected areas. Is she reaching the village? On this question of ours, a villager says, “Sir, you will write fake, nothing will be seen sir, but this time you will see it, this is our request to the government.” Meanwhile, about nine people get down from a boat. The boat was so small that barely six people could board, and there was no safety equipment or kit etc. in it. Khevaiya was not a professional person. The people of the village were eating it. That is, the people whose relatives or family members were coming were somehow rowing the boat and taking them across.
boat floating on paddy fields
When the team of “BollywoodWallah” boarded the boat to take stock of the situation inside the village, Naumi Lal, who was riding with us, points out that the boat is plying on the standing paddy crop. There is so much water that the fields have turned into deep lakes. As the boat moves towards the village, vegetable vines are seen on the side of the village. The farmers had planted vines on the bamboos in the field, but now the bamboos were looking like stalks. The vegetable vines had rotted. The boat stops on the banks of Bahadurpur village. We crossed in about 40 minutes. Where the boat stopped at the very mouth, some women mistaking us for government officials start telling their problems. Before this, she complains about the delay in taking stock, later she comes to know that we are not government officials, then she starts requesting to convey the problem to them.
“It’s a very bad situation. There is nothing left, everything is gone.”
Saying this with moist eyes, the eyes of Bahadurpur resident Savitri Devi get watery. She says that she cultivated paddy on her own and on share-cropping. The crop standing in about twenty bighas has been destroyed. All the accumulated wealth was spent in sowing the crop in the sharecropped field. Due to flood water there is no livelihood in the area. Now I feel scared just thinking what we will eat tomorrow. The grief of another elderly woman of the village standing next to her is also similar to that of Savitri. His family has a total of three bighas of land. The crops of his farm have also been ruined.
Daughters’ education stopped due to lack of boat
Due to flood water, not only communication route has been cut, life has come to a standstill. Seema conveys the essence of life affected by floods in this one sentence. She says that even though water has not entered most of the houses in the village, everything has come to a standstill. No one has been able to go to school for 15 days. Seema is doing BA, her college is about 10 km away. After class eight, boys and girls go to college in Itaunja. Since there are only three boats between two villages, there is a fight in the morning for a seat in them. To avoid any dispute, her family has decided that she will not go to school until the road opens.
Panchayat assistant present, rest of government staff absent
Fields spread over hundreds of acres in Sultanpur, Bahadurpur, Lasa, Akdariya Kala Khurd have been submerged due to which crops of paddy, vegetables etc. have been ruined. Farmers are keeping safe by making videos of the damage caused to their crops so that they can show them as proof if the government conducts a survey. The local administration has issued an alert. Round the clock monitoring is being done. However, there has been no report of loss of life or property. No government official or employee has yet contacted the people of these flood affected villages. This allegation of the villagers was confirmed by the fact that there was no officer or employee from any department in the Gram Panchayat Secretariat except the Panchayat Assistant. Everyone’s room was locked.
721 villages of 21 districts affected by flood, villagers in confusion here
As per government records, 721 villages in 21 districts of the state are affected by floods. The government is taking forward the action of providing timely compensation by conducting a survey to the farmers whose crops have been destroyed due to floods. Whether the Sultanganj Gram Panchayat has been declared flood-affected or not, the villagers have doubt in this too. On the condition of anonymity, the Gram Panchayat member told that it has been learned from others that the floods in Sultanpur, Bahadurpur have been taken for the increase in the water level of the lake. For this reason green fodder, flood relief materials etc. have not been distributed to the animals.
Gomti River: Both origin and merging places are UP.
Gomti River is counted entirely as a river of Uttar Pradesh. Both its origin and merger are in UP. Gomti originates from the swampy area of Pilibhit. From here it flows through the districts of Shahjahanpur, Kheri, Sitapur, Lucknow, Sultanpur, and Jaunpur and joins the river Ganges near Ghazipur. The Lucknow section of the Gomti basin includes some parts of Malihabad tehsil on the right, Mahona on the left, the central part of Lucknow tehsil and the north-eastern part of Mohanlalganj tehsil. This area is full of many lakes and ponds. Reth river originates in this area and after flowing through Barabanki district in east direction finally joins the left bank of Gomti.