In the past three months, five members of a family died of starvation in the Koraput-Balangir Kalahandi (KBK) region of Orissa, which is one of the poorest in the country. The fifth death happened on Thursday, when 65-year-old Minji Bariha died in hospital.
“Minji was malnourished. She didn’t get enough to eat and she didn’t get medicines at the right time,” said Dr KS Kumar, who treated her.
The Bariha family used to live in Chhabiripalli village under Khaprakhol block in Balangir district (western Orissa) of KBK. Minji’s son Jhintu was a landless labourer and had seven mouths to feed — father Champeswar, 72, mother Minji, 69, wife Bimala, sons Ramprasad and Sibaprasad and a seven-month-old daughter. Sometime back, Jhintu had gone to Hyderabad to work in a brick kiln. A few months later, he met with a disabling accident, which kept out of work. Soon after, Jhintu returned to his village.
With the breadwinner sitting at home, everybody had to depend on whatever Jhintu’s wife Bimala brought in. She worked as a daily labourer but her earnings weren’t enough to ensure two meals a day for a family of seven. The Barihas ate in the morning, but went to bed hungry. Some days later, the family started begging. In Chhabiripalli, most villagers are so poor they don’t have much to spare for beggars. So, the Barihas stayed hungry. Eventually, they started getting fever, then malaria but couldn’t even think of getting treatment.
On September 6, the seven-month-old girl died. The next day, it was the turn of the youngest son, Sibaprasad. On September 9, their mother and the family’s sole earner, Bimala, passed away.
That’s when the news of these deaths reached the administration. They came and put Jhintu and his eldest son seven-year-old Ramaprasad, in hospital. Nearly a month later, on October 7, Jhintu died due to blood vomiting. On December 14, Minji was admitted to Balangir hospital with fever and other diseases. She died on December 19.
The Balangir district administration said the family was given 25 kg of rice per month and Minji and her husband were given Rs200 a month as old-age pension. They said Minji died due to pneumonia and from age-related ailments. But the doctor Kumar treating her said she died of malnutrition.
Now, the district administration has shifted Ramprasad to an ashram for the destitute. His grandfather, Champeswar, is also being cared for.
In the last 20 years, the KBK scheme, NREGS and other programmes were introduced to give people of this region a chance to survive. But those don’t seem to have made much of a difference to the people of KBK.
