Ten years after Cyclone Aila, inhabitants of Sundarbans are still waiting for rehabilitation

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By Mehebub Sahana

Almost ten years after the havoc created by cyclone Alia in 2009, inhabitants of the Sundarbans area are still struggling with human-animal conflicts, salinity intrusion into agricultural land, decreasing fresh water supply, grinding poverty, unemployment, riverbank failure, continued coastal erosion, and ambient effects of the threat from climate change.

The Indian part of the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve is spread over 48 uninhabited and 54 inhabited islands, among 19 Community Development Blocks in the North and South 24 Parganas districts of West Bengal. I was leading a team of investigators for extensive field survey in 57 villages in these 19 Blocks to study the socio-economic conditions of the Indian Sundarban region after Cyclone Aila as part of my research, interviews, and soil sample collection in the first month of 2018. Our team was dismayed at witnessing the everyday struggle of the local people of the Sundarbans.