varanasi the tribals in the maoistaffected districts including mirzapur chandauli and sonbhadra of east uttar pradesh seem to have been born with a burden poverty with almost all the major political parties promising special packages for various regions of the state to garner votes the situation for those living below poverty line in the region is as desperate as was a couple of decades back take for example katwaru a member of ghasia tribe in maoistaffected sonebhadra district who and his ilk had performed the traditional karma dance and attended the lunch hosted by rajiv gandhi and sonia gandhi at the teen murty house in new delhi on november 24 1986 though no positive change has come to these people in the last 26 years katwaru ironically has preserved the invitation letter for lunch he received from late prime minister rajiv gandhi and sonia gandhi as a memento of promises yet to be fulfilled in may 2010 katwaru a native of raup ghasia basti in robertsganj district got a chance to meet rahul gandhi and remind him about his miseries at a public meeting at ahraura in mirzapur he got only a customary pat on his back he also wrote to rahul gandhi narrating the hardships faced by the ghasia tribals but nothing came their way while about 10000 ghasia tribals live in various blocks of the district about 300 of them are concentrated in raup village besides many other tribes like agaria panika bhuiya and chero inhabit the district they have no land and not even safe source of drinking water their children do not go to school and they are deprived of even basic facilities the tribe lost 18 children in 200102 due to hunger and malnutrition lenin raghuvanshi of the peoples vigilance committee on human rights pvchr who works in the area said besides poverty these people also face police atrocities and administrative apathy like katwaru there are a number of people living in abject poverty in the maoistaffected districts of mirzapur chandauli and sonbhadra thousands of people have to sleep on empty stomach as they cant arrange for two square meals a day the monthly income of a number of bpl families is less than rs 250 while sonbhadra is known as a power hub with many thermal power plants of ntpc and state government chandauli is know as rice bowl of the region similarly mirzapur is famous for its sand stone and carpet industrybpl census2002 indicates that 4633 bpl households of the energyrich sonbhadra district get less than one square meal per day for major part of the year the number of such families is 716 and 45952 in chandauli and mirzapur districts similarly 10241 bpl families in chandauli 4176 in sonbhadra district and 1832 families in mirzapur struggle to meet all their needs in a meager monthly income less than rs 250 according to records 97212 poor households in sonbhadra normally get one square meal per day but less than one meal occasionally