Govt leaves no stones unturned to keep Baghmundi's Birhor tribals safe amid Corona outbreak

Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee government is ensuring all support and safety to the primitive tribal groups in the state, including the 300-odd Birhor tribal populace at Baghmundi in Purulia, with an endeavor to keep them safe during the COVID-19 outbreak.

At the same time, all steps have been taken to ensure that they keep getting continuous supply of food even if they stay in the remotest parts of Bengal. Following direction from the state secretariat, authorities of each of the 12 tribal habitat districts in Bengal have taken necessary steps to maintain a system to get daily updates on the tribal populace under their respective jurisdiction.

At present the tribal population in the state is around 54 lakh. But there are only four primitive tribal groups including Birhor, Lodha and Toto. They are inhabitants of Purulia, West Midnapore and Jalpaiguri districts respectively.

According to a senior state government official, in the wake of COVID-19 directions were given to all district authorities to prepare a separate data of people from such groups and those from economically weaker sections. Based on the same, all arrangements are being made to help these people get extra ration if needed.

Nineteen percent of the total 31 lakh population of Purulia district is tribal populace and only 300 of 89 families are of Birhor tribal group. They traditionally stay in forests near Ayodhya Hills at Bhupatipalli in Baghmundi block of the district and most of them work as agricultural labourers or collect wood from the forest to sell it as fuel, as their means of livelihood.

In the past nine years, they have received pucca households and their children have started going to school. Some have even appeared for Madhyamik examination, while youths are now being provided training on bee keeping.

Though the tribal populace has witnessed development during the past nine years of the Mamata Banerjee government, the state along with the district administration is leaving no stones unturned to ensure their safety and security during the COVID-19 outbreak.

When contacted, Rahul Majumdar, district magistrate of Purulia, said: "A map highlighting the areas of tribal settlement has been prepared and Block Development Officers (BDOs) are closely monitoring to see if the tribal groups need any further assistance. They are helped to get benefits of different state government schemes, including free-of-cost food grains from the nearest fair price shops without facing any inconvenience."

The Chief Minister has recently announced a pension of Rs 1,000 for every elderly person above 80 years from tribal groups under the scheme named Jai Bangla. As many as 1,62,327 people so far have received the benefit and it includes 13,000 beneficiaries whose names have got enlisted after April 1.