Imphal, November 18 2008: Despite the different schemes of the state and central government for the development and welfare in the hills, people of Henglep sub-division in Churachandpur are living in a very pitiable condition with no food to eat and relying on whatever they got for their survival after the bamboo flowering occuring in some part of the Churachandpur and Tamenglong districts.

A group of reporters along with Information Centre for Hill Area Committee (ICHAM) and volunteers of Kuki Students Organisation (KSO) visited some villages in the sub-division on November 15 to enquire the situationof the people.

The team of reporters enquires about the living of the villagers and have interaction with the villagers on the woes they are facing.

The most shocking thing that experience by the reporters was that of destruction of crops of around 150 villages by mouse in recent time.

They used to celebrate Christmas in past with full of rice in stocks.

But this time, they will not be able to celebrate this festival as usual.

Peoples here are living on arums and pumpkins.

The Henglep sub-division is located at a distance of 78 kilometres from Churachandpur town.

Only Shaktimaan can enter the village for a distance of 31 kilometres from Singnul Lamkhai which is 46 kilometres away from Henglep sub-division.

It has been a major problem for the people to go through this route of Shaktimaan which took almost eight hours to pass the distance of 31 kilometres.

Even the headquarter of the sub-division did not have any facility of electricity.

The village chief of Henglep sub-division, Mangtilal Haokip said that there were no doctors, no staffs in the hospital of the area.

The only junior school has only five teachers.

The FCS godown which was built in 1997 did not have a single grain of rice.

The staffs of SDO office come twice in a year only in Republic Day and Independence Day.

The team of reporters enquired about the situation of the villages of N Saikot, D Mului, Doujang, Songkol, Boleot, Najang, Vongmol, Molen, Moljen, Molnom, Thingheijang, Selkap and Damaji.

The team also enquired the paddy fields which were destroyed by mouse.

The large number of mouse is believed to be from Tamenglong.

Bamboo flowering is still going on and bamboos are still drying in a very large scale.

There were no granaries as they have no food grains in their stocks.

One kilogram of super fine rice costs 25 to 27 rupees.

Besides the unavailability of PDS supplies some villages even did not have any knowledge about PDS.

People there used to buy rice by interchanging with woods.

Villagers use to exchange four kg of rice with one cubic of timber of wood.

When asked if they get supplies of PDS, they said that it is only food grains what they like and nothing else.

In past they used to harvest 200 tins of rice when they sowed two tins of grains.

But this time, some got only 30 tins out of the two tins.

In some area one harvested seven tins from four tins of sowed grains.

But almost all of the fields are destroyed by mouse and no grains were yielded at all.

The villagers had many times requested the concern SDO and DC about the sudden attack of famine orally but no actions were taken up so far said chiefs of the villages.

Volunteers of KSO and ICHAM ensured the villagers to report the condition to the concern authority and to urge them for necessary action.

They also ensured the villagers to provide some rice from their side.

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