Life in the Sunderbans, the mangrove forests in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, has
undergone a sea change after Cyclone Aila swept through it with some locals altering their farming methods and others rearing non-traditional livestock to cope with the difficult situation.
Rajarshi Giri, Suchitra Jana and Sumati Mondal are among the locals who have changed their farming methods to deal with the raised level of salinity in the soil after the cyclone hit the area in May 2009.
To deal with the problem, saline-tolerant paddy strains have been introduced by aid agencies.
"Not only agriculture, volunteers of the aid agencies have also encouraged fish farming by helping excavate ponds and rearing of ducks to improve their economic condition," Subhas Chandra Acharya, project coordinator of Sundarbans
Affairs department of West Bengal government, said.
He claimed these simple adjustments in their ways of living were slowly arming the dwellers against nature's furies which often strike the world-famous mangrove forest.
Suchitra Jana of Pathar Pratima was one of those who immensely benefited from cultivating a saline-tolerant paddy variety, Dudheswar, in her small field in the Pathar Pratima block of Sundarbans.
The traditional variety needs less labour and less chemical fertiliser, the only demerit being the low yield.
Government agencies and NGOs have also trained people to prepare compost pits and get vermicompost as well as raise livestock in a difficult situation.
Rearing goats and sheep is another way to earn a good living by small farmers and landless people. Sumati Mondal, a landless and handicapped woman of East Sripatinagar, was one who benefited
However, Acharya noted that the programmes could have been more successful but for the "reluctance" of government officials and other employees to regularly interact with the
villagers of Sunderbans.
Authorities have also initiated measures to protect locals against water-borne diseases.
The platforms of tubewells that supply drinking water to the residents have been raised by eight feet so that in times of flooding and sea surges they would not get inundated,
Sumit Pal, an official of the Public Health Engineering department, said
Cyclone Aila had left a trail of devastation in the great Sunderbans forest spread over India and Bangladesh.