Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | In a village in Uttar Pradesh, food is always on the minds of its residents -Supriya Sharma

In a village in Uttar Pradesh, food is always on the minds of its residents -Supriya Sharma

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Feb 15, 2017   modified Modified on Feb 15, 2017
-Scroll.in

Botched-up beneficiary lists have denied the needy the government rations to which they are legally entitled.

Even though few in eastern Uttar Pradesh’s Baksha village have ever seen the internet, every man, woman and child there knows the word online. Online for them means standing in a queue outside a computer shop with a bundle of documents that the shopkeeper consults as he types away into the computer. At the end of the exercise, people hope, as an old woman said, that their requests “have reached the government”.

Young men often go online for jobs. Recently, young women did it to get smartphones under an official scheme. But what got everybody in Baksha hustling to go online was something rather basic: food.

Food is a preoccupation in Baksha.

According to the 2011 census, 40% of the village’s main working population of 923 people is engaged in agriculture. This is an underestimate because the census counted only 24 women as cultivators, while in reality, more women than men can be spotted working in the fields. Taking just the male working population, the proportion of those engaged in agriculture is as high as 60%.

And yet, the people of Baksha often scrimp on meals.

That’s because land ownership is skewed – a handful of families own large estates while the majority of cultivators have small farms that don’t yield enough to feed their families. Those who do adhia kheti or sharecropping (in which a landowner allows a tenant to use his land in return for a share of the crop produced) have to part with half their produce. Muslims don’t own any land. Dalits, at best, have tiny patches. “Enough to grow garlic and coriander,” said Bhole Nath, a resident of the Harijan basti.

Through January and February, potatoes with rotis and rice was the staple in most kitchens.

In July 2013, the Centre passed the National Food Security Act that guarantees subsidised foodgrains to two-thirds of the country’s population. The Uttar Pradesh government woke up to it in September 2015.

Under the law, the Central government bears the cost of providing five kilos of foodgrains per person per month to 79.6% of Uttar Pradesh’s rural population and 64.4% of its urban population. To implement the law, however, required the state government to identify those eligible for the grains. If the case of Baksha village is anything to go by, this required administrative skills that Uttar Pradesh lacks.

Please click here to read more.
 

Scroll.in, 14 February, 2017, https://scroll.in/article/829077/in-a-village-in-uttar-pradesh-food-is-always-on-the-minds-of-its-residents


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close