A month after cyclone Amphan ripped apart Bengal, Basudeb Bhuiyan of Bhubaneswari village in Kultali block in South 24-Parganas, has been living under a 10-foot-long tarpaulin tent with 10 other members of his family.

The new home of the Bhuiyans, where one can only enter on one’s knees, is a symbol of the damage by the cyclone that brought down almost the entire state to its knees on May 20.

In an agrarian village of 500-odd families, the Bhuiyan family was regarded solvent as they had 0.17 acres of farmland and they reared 12 goats and three cows.

Their status has gone with the wind. “I lost my house. My farmland got flooded. I lost two goats....I have lost virtually everything,” Basudeb said.

Living under the tarpaulin tent, he is busy counting losses. He has heard about the Rs 20,000 government grant for those whose dwellings are damaged, but he is clueless on how to get it. The crop loss compensation of Rs 1,500 per farmer eludes him.

Water has receded from neighbour Aloke Bhuiyan’s land, but at the cost of fertility as saline water has seeped in. “Our farmlands are useless now for a year,” Aloke, who also lost one of his two homes, said. Aloke has visited the block development office several times since the cyclone, but his application for financial aid has only “done the rounds of tables”. “I’ve been asked to visit the BDO office on Monday again. I will again cycle 6km.”

Local CPM MLA Ramkrishna Halder said that financial assistance from the government for Bhubaneswari is unavailable because the local panchayat is run by a CPM-SUCI alliance.

“We are from the Opposition. Beneficiaries of Amphan relief are Trinamul Congress members,” Halder alleged.

Atabur Rahman of East Midnapore before his ravaged mud hut in Nich Kasba. Picture by Anshuman Phadikar

Pratima Mondal, the Trinamul MP for Joynagar constituency under which the Kultali block falls said ponds will be cleaned within a few days. “The district administration is planning on how the ponds can be cleaned at the earliest. We are not discriminating amongst the beneficiaries,” she said.

Bikash Sardar, a farmer in Sibati-Kamardanaga village under Basirhat-1 block, is yet to drain out saline water that inundated his jute fields. Without “help or compensation from any corner”, he decided to appeal to the local bank to seek exemption for his loan.

“Saline water entered my field that damaged the entire jute crop. Even after a month, I could not remove them as the field is still waterlogged,” Bikash said, adding he had not received any government compensation. “I borrowed money from the bank for jute cultivation. It is impossible for me now to repay the loan. I will appeal to the bank for relief and I hope the bank will consider my plea,” he said.

East Midnapore’s Khejuri farm labourer Atabur Rahman, 28, spent most of May 20 hunkered in a corner of his mud hut in Nich Kasba village with his wife and two infant children. “Our home is barely 1km from the coastline. We are grateful to be alive,” Atabur said. “But a month on, I have to say that the government's assistance to ordinary folk in this area has come up short.” Despite “several communications” with his panchayat, he did not even get a tarpaulin sheet. “I borrowed Rs. 1,200 from a relative to buy a sheet,” he said. “My only hope is the MGNREGA,” he said, referring to the 100-day work guarantee scheme.

Asked, panchayat pradhan Tarun Krishna Das attributed the situation to funding issues.

“Most of the 10,000 homes in this area have been partially or fully damaged. Around 5,800 payments have been processed and reports say that 2,500 beneficiaries have received them already. We are working on the rest,” he said. Admitting that the panchayat had fallen short of tarpaulin provisions, he said: “We received only 1,200 tarpaulin sheets from the authorities.”

Jobless carpenter Kesto Mandal’s house at Krishnachandrapur in South 24-Parganas’ Mathurapur was damaged by Amphan, when a branch crashlanded on the asbestos roof before injuring his wife Swapna. He, still awaiting compensation, covered the gaping hole with tarpaulins he received from a teacher.

Jamil Akhtar, BDO, Mathurapur, said: “I have no information that the family did not get compensation so far. Send me his details, I will look into it.”

Additional reporting by Subhasish Chaudhuri, Anshuman Phadikar and Snehamoy Chakraborty