By Jatindra Dash, IANS
Kashipur (Orissa) : The cholera-hit Kashipur block of Orissa’s Rayagada district, where 52 people have died, is a study in contrast.
Mega steel and mining projects are coming up in some parts of the region, triggering improvement in infrastructure in the surrounding areas. But villagers in other parts of the block are succumbing to waterborne diseases due to poor living conditions and lack of medical care.
According to P. Sitaram, the district chief medical officer of Rayagada, cholera has claimed 52 lives in the Kashipur block and affected more than 35,000 people in 100 of its 500 villages over the past one and a half months. The number of people affected constitutes almost one-third of the block’s total population of 150,000.
The Kashipur block has nearly 200 million tonnes of bauxite deposits. A large number of companies are making efforts to tap these resources and are improving infrastructure in their areas. But this has not made any difference to the quality of life of local people.
More than 60 percent of the block’s residents are tribals. Many of them live in hilltops surrounded by forests. One can see newly constructed roads in good condition for about 30 km on the way from the district headquarters of Rayagada to Kashipur.
All these roads have been built recently to facilitate the Utkal Alumina International Ltd, a company that has proposed to extract bauxite ore from the region to produce alumina. One can see the company building houses and other infrastructure near the newly constructed roads.
However, after the initial stretch of 30 km, the condition of the road deteriorates. One is then faced with potholed roads and a number of damaged drains.
Due to the poor condition of the roads, it takes more than an hour to cover a distance of 15 km from the block headquarters of Kashipur to Nuagaon, a village where a cholera outbreak killed at least nine people last month. About 300 people reside in this village and most of them are below the poverty line.
“The village has six tube wells and all of them were defunct when the cholera broke out last month. By the time they were made functional we had lost nine lives,” 60-year-old Dambaru Bisi told IANS.
Bisi lives in a straw-made house and has a small patch of hilly land in which he cultivates cereals and millets.
“The agricultural activities provide us work for only six months. The rest of the year we search for jobs. Since work is not easily available, particularly during rainy season, we eat preserved meat and leaves, wild mushrooms and fruits from the forest. People also eat mango kernel,” he said.
“Some people leave the village in search of work. This year also more than a dozen people have gone to Surat for work,” Bisi added.
The central government has launched the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) to provide 100 days of employment to village households but there has been no sign of any work in this village.
“No work was done here. We supported the Utkal Alumina project in the region but the local sarpanch who opposed the project does not want any work to be done,” he said.
The man broke into tears while describing how he lost his 20-year-old-daughter Subarna Pujari to cholera Aug 1. Both Bisi’s daughter and her three-year-old son were suffering from the disease. But while the boy was taken to a government hospital at Kashipur where the doctors saved his life, Subarna stayed at home and died.
She is survived by her four small children and Bisi is worried his son-in-law will not be able to take care of them. “The administration has assured us that the children will be sent to some orphanage. Let’s hope for the best,” Bisi said.
Nuagaon is one of 100 villages in the Kashipur block that are affected by waterborne disease like diarrhoea and cholera. Their sufferings continue even as they support Utkal Alumina in the hope of getting employment opportunities. Neither the company nor the government has come forward to build roads for them or provide other infrastructure that could help them in a crisis.
(Jatindra Dash can be contacted at [email protected])