Homes have gone. Classrooms have turned into shelters. Many have been living on a river dam for years. They call it home. Every year, when the monsoon comes, the Ganges and Fulahar rivers overflow in Bengal's Malda district. The water covers villages, forcing people to leave their homes.
NDTV travelled to the Malda's Ratua to track down thousands of people displaced by overflowing Ganga.
Those living on the small river islands, called "chars", face a unique problem. They often lose their homes when the river changes course. Identity cards and other documents get lost. Even if they don't, land documents lose all their value.
Now, with the Special Intensive Revision of voter lists in progress, many of these island residents are worried they might not be included.
Kuchi Kumari Mondal, a young woman who works as a ICDS health worker, had to flee to the river dam with her family as her home has gone to river.
"I had a home in Jututola village that got washed away due to Ganga erosion. Since then, I have been living here on the river dam. It has been three months. I have done my SIR enumerations. But I am uncertain if I will be listed or not. There are nearly 300 families from my village those have fled to dam for makeshift home," she said.
There are many 'chars' (island) in Malda. The residents have lost their homes many times. The river's shifting path sometimes puts them in West Bengal, sometimes in Bihar, and sometimes even in Jharkhand. Because of this, they do not have permanent addresses or documents to prove where they live.
One of them is Sangeeta Mondal.
"I would never be able to forget the night I lost my home. That happened last winter. At least three to four villages got washed away. I lost my land. I have submitted my documents and hope our voices are heard by the concerned authorities so that we are not left out of SIR," she said.
For the BLOs, conducting the SIR exercise in these erosion-hit areas is not easy either.
Prasenjit Mondal. the local BLO, was seen in the village trying to track down the homeless villagers. "They have moved and I am trying to reach out to them," he said.
"In my area, there are at least 300 families who left their village due to erosion. Some of them have moved to the other bank of the river. Many of them have left for Bihar and Jharkhand. Many among them have moved out of Malda," he said.
When the SIR exercise started in the area, many of the locals were seen trying to help Mondol track down homeless voters.
Many of them were very concerned about their lost documents.
Manoj Mahato, a local resident of Ratua, said: "Ganga erosion is not new here. We are dealing with it for past three to four years. Nearly 400 people of my village were homeless due to this. We don't know where they are now".
"A bigger problem for us is the loss of valuable documents. Camps are being conducted for them... We don't know if we will be included or not. We will go for SIR if we survive this erosion," said another local, Bhanu Mondal.
Now, politics has started over this issue. Local Trinamool Congress leader Soumitra Roy said: "The Ganga river is under the control of the BJP-led Central government. Malda has a BJP MP and four MLAs, but none of them were seen working for those homeless people. Only the Trinamool is helping them during SIR".
The BJP's Leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, said: "The people affected due to erosion are against Mamata Banerjee's government because of the lack of performance".
