Two months after the WestBengal government deniedany food scarcity as a possi-ble cause of death of sevenpersons from a tribal com-munity, a survey report hasidentifi��ed “food scarcity invarying degrees” in about31% of tribal households inWest Bengal.

The study titled ‘An Inqui-ry into the world of the Adi-vasis of West Bengal’, con-ducted by Professor AmartyaSen’s Pratichi Institute andAsiatic Society, will be re-leased in Kolkata on Monday.

The survey was conductedin 1,000 tribal households toascertain living conditions,health and education.

West Bengal is home to aover fi��ve million tribals, with6% of the India’s tribal popu-lation of 100 million. But inmany areas, tribals of theState are “far behind” interms of human develop-ment. One area, which has

been a matter of contentionin recent months after thedeath of seven tribals in aspan of 15 days in November,is scarcity of food. The preli-minary survey reportclaimed that “nearly onethird [31%] of the surveyed

households” reportedlyfaced “food scarcity in vary-ing degrees” in the past year.

“…while some householdsfaced acute hunger only insome months (August–Oc-tober), in many cases, peo-ple had half-meals only twice

a day. Also, in some cases,adult members [of house-holds] reportedly ate onlyonce a day,” the report not-ed. Most of the families sur-veyed could hardly aff��ordanimal protein or pulses.

In addition “poverty-born

deaths” and only four weredue to old age.

The work participationrate [WPR] is higher amongthe Adivasis in Bengal “forc-ing the children of schoolgo-ing age to discontinue theirstudies in order to fend [for]themselves and support thefamilies,” the report noted.According to the Census of2011, while WPR is 39% and49% in Bengal and India, res-pectively, “the correspond-ing fi��gures for Adivasis were49% and 47%,” indicating theparticipation of morechildren.

“Both the children and el-derly were also involved inearning, and that the rate oftransition in education waslow…” the report said.

vices like alcoholism [and]the fragility of the publichealth system…seemed tohave resulted in a much low-er life chances among theAdivasis than their more pri-vileged co-citizens,” the re-port noted. Degradation offorest and environmental de-gradation are cited as twomore reasons for “reducedavailability of natural nu-trients” resulting in earlydeaths.

Premature deathsThe report indicated that thenumber of deaths reportedto have occurred in the sur-veyed households, in theyear preceding the survey,“was 52, among which 48[92%] were premature

Tribals of West Bengal battling food scarcity: studyCommunities are ‘far behind’ in terms of human development, says survey of 1,000 households by Professor Amartya Sen’s institute

Suvojit BagchiKolkata