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STATES: ORISSA
Pathetic Conditions
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BISWANATH MAJHI
The farmer lost his wife and a son along with four workers after
they consumed a meal of rice and ragi. Since Majhi is not poor,
the deaths could be due to poisoning rather than starvation.
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Kashipur, about
400 km from the state capital Bhubaneswar, falls in one of the state's
poorest districts. Irrigation is practically non-existent in the hilly
terrain and the land is not conducive to farming. When the rains are good,
they are able to grow some crops. At other times, they scour for food
and do odd jobs. Economic deprivation often forces the people of this
barren region-predominantly tribals-to eat either gruel made of mango
kernels or wild mushrooms. While the debate on whether the tribals eat
mango kernels out of choice or compulsion rages on, what is irrefutable
is that these people often end up paying with their lives. According to
state Government officials, since the gruel is prepared in unhygienic
conditions and consumed over several weeks, it becomes fermented and therefore
toxic, adding to the list of fatalities.
No matter what the cause of the deaths-food
poisoning or hunger-the suffering people of the region have few options.
With just one doctor for the one lakh inhabitants of Kashipur, health
services are practically non-existent. "You cannot afford to fall
sick. If you do, you are bound to die," admits a senior official.
Despite repeated reminders by the harried district administration, the
BJD-BJP Government has failed to act. There are no doctors in all the
six primary health centres at Kashipur, and against a sanctioned strength
of four, the community health centre has only one doctor.
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"Who
needs a government that cannot feed its own people?"
J.B. Patnaik, President, Orissa PCC
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The Opposition may make capital of the Government's
poor track record, but the Congress too has little to show by way of performance.
In 1988, moved by reports of abject privation, the then prime minister
Rajiv Gandhi visited Kashipur and initiated the Orissa Tribal Development
Project for the region with an outlay of Rs 60 crore. The much-hyped project
talked of creating new infrastructure and job opportunities besides adding
to long-serving assets like fisheries and plantations. However, there
has been no discernible change in the fortunes of the tribals. If anything,
the number of families below the poverty line has gone up from 15,000
when the project started to 24,000 now.
"All that the development project created
in the process was a new class of contractors with their own interests,"
states an official report by Orissa Relief Commissioner H.K. Panda who
inquired into the reasons for the failure of the project. Having tasted
blood, these contractors, who seem to enjoy political patronage, are at
work again. By painting a doomsday scenario of mass death through starvation,
they probably want to attract new projects and in the process, more money.
The hunger of the tribals is the least of their concerns.
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