Gruel centre closed, govt ignorant

Bijapur: Hangaragi in Bagewadi taluk is one of the most affected villages due to the floods. Over 210 houses have collapsed here, leaving one woman dead and 15 cattle washed away. With crops over a large area destroyed, the people here have nothing to eat.
And how does the government react to such a crisis? It stops the lone gruel centre in the village.What is more, no senior government official - the DC, the tahsildar or the block education officer (BEO) - knows about its closure.
The village school was converted into the gruel centre. The midday meal infrastructure was used to cook rice and sambar under the supervision of the BEO and the school teachers. It supplied food to nearly 4,000 people for the first three days. But on Monday, no official turned up at the centre and it remained closed since then.
"We have no clue. They did not tell us why they are closing it. Neither did they tell us whether it will be started again," Channabasappa Bashetti, president of School Development and Monitoring Committee (SDMC) said.
Villagers would have liked the gruel centre to work for a few more days. Not all the villagers here are poor, but some of them are in a position to cook at home. That is because most houses have collapsed. Foodgrains stored at home have either been washed away or rotted away, standing in water.
"After the centre was closed, we are forced to cook rice in plates and small vessels by burning paper and sticks. Since we can't enter our houses, we cook in the open fields or in the village school," says Mallikarjun Janna.
When contacted, tahsildar M S Sasanur said he would re-open the gruel centre immediately.
Hangaragi has not had power supply for a week now. This has affected the water supply too. Irrigation pump sets are not working and people are forced to drink water from the village stream, regardless of whether it is safe.