Harsh winter isn't new to UP: Why did Yogi govt watch 70 die in cold?

As North India reels under the cold wave, Uttar Pradesh saw temperatures dip below five degrees Celsius in several parts last week, with January 5 being the coldest day of the season. While extreme weather conditions have extracted a steep toll – more than 70 people have died so far and the movement of flights and trains continues to be affected – the administration has been caught napping.

Despite predictions that this year’s winter was likely to be harsher than last year’s, adequate preparations seem not to have been made, as, by Monday, 22 deaths were reported from Poorvanchal, three each from Brij and Bareilly divisions, 11 from Allahabad division and 28 from the Bundelkhand region.

This is not the first time that Uttar Pradesh has seen a devastating winter. According to an IndiaSpend report, between 2001 and 2014, the state saw the most number of deaths due to cold weather in the country.

Weather conditions claim the most vulnerable – those too poor to buy adequate warm clothes, those forced to sleep in the open, exposed to the mercy of the elements. However, more than the weather, these victims have been failed by the government, by the sheer apathy of the state machinery.

Shelters for homeless

The first obvious step to prevent people from freezing to death is building night shelters for the homeless. However, the Uttar Pradesh government, irrespective of the party in power, has had a historically dismal record in this area.

As per the Census 2011, Uttar Pradesh accounts for more than 18 per cent of homeless people (1.77 million) in India. The district of Kanpur Nagar has the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of homelessness in the country, with more than 18 people in a thousand without a roof over their heads.

However, UP is also among the states with the worst record of building shelters for such people. 

The Supreme Court, as far back as in 2011, had ordered that states construct shelters and not allow “even a single person to die this winter from the freezing cold.”

In 2012, the court evaluated the compliance of 16 states with its orders in a report titled “Permanent Shelters for Urban Homeless Populations” in 2012. In that report, Uttar Pradesh had been ranked “average”, that is, it had 30 per cent to 60 per cent of permanent shelters.

However, things have gone downhill since. In 2013, the central government launched the Shelter for Homeless programme under the National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM). In Uttar Pradesh, not a single new shelter has been built, or an existing one renovated, under the scheme.

Allocation of wood for bonfires

The tale of apathy and insensitivity does not end here. In the absence of permanent shelters, the government provides wood for bonfires, around which people can gather and escape the worst of the cold.

However, a recent report in Times of India showed that in Lucknow, most of this wood was being allocated to VIP areas, to keep the security guards and domestic staff of the rich warm.

The report said that around 500 spots have been identified where such bonfires are to be lighted, but most of the wood was being diverted to “VIP” areas, even as only one-fourth of the total Rs 35-40 crore earmarked for procuring firewood had been spent so far.

Allowing people to freeze to death, and getting wood bought at government expense diverted to your home because you can, takes a special kind of insensitivity, which seems to have become typical of Uttar Pradesh’s culture of display of political and financial muscle flexing.

If this is the story of Lucknow, conditions in rural areas are likely to be worse. After the ToI report, Lucknow’s mayor has ordered an enquiry into the distribution of firewood, but the price for the delay has been paid in terms of human life.

Sweaters for schoolchildren

Even school-going children have not been spared the brunt of the insensitive dragging of feet on part of the government. The administration is yet to provide sweaters to more than 1.5 crore students of the schools it runs, despite a budgetary provision of Rs 2.35 crore for it.

Education department officials have said there aren’t enough suppliers to provide the sweaters in bulk, tenders for which were floated in December.  

Why exactly was the process begun as late as December is so far not clear. The state’s minister of state for basic education, Anupama Jaiswal, has attributed the delay to a “technical glitch”, and announced she will not wear warm clothes herself till the students have been provided seaters. How will her noble gesture help shivering students is difficult to understand.

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— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) December 26, 2017

CM on campaign mode

Ever since the BJP government came to power winning a massive mandate in Uttar Pradesh, it has shown remarkable alacrity in painting buildings saffron, banning unlicensed meat shops, and ensuring madarsas pass its tests of patriotism.

Winter does not come as a surprise. Why was the same initiative not shown in building shelters for the homeless?

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who has been busy holding the party flag aloft in other states, as recently as on January 8 taunted Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah over farm deaths in the state, and said unlike in the southern state, cows were safe in Uttar Pradesh.

If only the same could be said of people, who are freezing to death, irrespective of religion or political loyalties.  

Also read: What Adityanath sparring with CM Siddaramaiah means for upcoming Karnataka Assembly polls