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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1974)
Famine . . . ( Continued from Page9) The headman of the village of 14,000 people said he knew of 80 who had starved to death in the last two months. He said hundreds would die in the coming two weeks. Like many other officials, he was resigned rather than angry, though he said the volunteers who gave out the free gruel supplies got 70 paise (about 10 cents) a head a day but spent only 30 paise. Official relief efforts are not enouh to keep people alive — and in this district there is no sign yet of any foreign relief. Although more than 60 pier cent of the whole state's rural population is badly hit, the govern ment aims to provide only 15 per cent with free rations of four pounds of grain a week a family — which is not enough for even one meal a day. A daily plate of gruel, which cannot be digested by starving cntiaren or adults, is supposed to cover another 26,000 people (nobody gets both). A token scheme for relief works is also being started — but this cannot helo people already too weak to work. The free gruel is a watery mixture of broken wheat mixed with bran and pulses (edible seeds), without spice. Only people with cards issued by the village authorities can get even this. Those without cards are forcibly turned away, and leave, moaning or weeping, to die. Across the road from a distribution van a woman collapsed on the roadwav. motionless, except for her tonaue in and out The man in charge of the gruel said that, if he gave her any it would “finish her off right away." Nobody knew her or offered help. People are roaming about everywhere looking for food, leaving wives, husbands and children. People picked leaves off trees and dug up roots. In the next village of Paltlakawa, a young man walked away, unfed, from a gruel kitchen, carrying an emaciated baby obviously close to death. He burst into tears saying his wife had left him and his gruel entitlement card had been stolen. The basic failure of the state government was that it did not procure enough rice for distribution. Out of a million tons that came on the market this year, it planned to purchase only half — and in the event managed to buy only 160,000 tons, leaving the rest to find its way to the inflated open market. The deficit should have been made ud from the central government's pool, but there is a famine in Assam, Orissa, Maharashira and other states too. No relief is now in sight, when the winter rice crop comes in there seems no prospect of the indolent and corrupt state government procuring more for its distribution system And next spring's wheat crop in the surplus states of the "Green Revolution" is expected to suffer badly from the shortage of fertilizers and power for irrigation pumps. Foreign relief experts say next year's famine may be more severe than this year's because of the worldwide grain shortage. Many thousands of children and old peple could be saved by a massive foreign relief operation, like that mounted in the 1968 flood here or in the 1970 influx of refugees from Bangladesh. Powdered milk on a massive scale for the winter would be an obvious measure But Cooch Behar has not yet attracted world attention. German AUTO SERVICE VOLKSWAGEN /»«££„, & MERCEDES DATSUN & TOYOTA EXPERT WORKMANSHIP AND SAVINGS 2045 FRANKLIN BLVD. Bus. Ph. 342-2912 Eugene, Oregon 97403 i|"l ..I1 I ■ ■ » ■ » * V V I V V 1 IP GET IN TOUCH Peter Bogdanovich's Directed By John Ford Tonight—Oct. 21 177 Lawrence ADMISSION FREE After an 8:00 p.m. showing of Ford’s Air Mail. Hcuttfiax TAMPONS REG OR SUPER BGX OF 40’$ mm TVit&OK (?AeUHfU6H4/Ufl TENNIS ^ BALLS A 'H&ia Sheen PERMANENT CREME RELAXER “SttzcJe Tttciqic • Fish Emulsion • Leaf Lustre • Fertilizer • African Violet Reg. 59 to 69c LINERS Reg. 49' BOTTLE OPENER J
