By IANS,
Patna : A 60-year-old Dalit woman has given birth to a baby girl at a relief camp in flood hit Bihar.
Chandan Devi gave birth Tuesday at a relief camp for flood victims in Udaikishanganj in Madhepura district, about 300 km from here.
Both mother and child are healthy and doing well, the doctor looking after Chandan Devi said.
“Everything is normal after the delivery,” Anand Kumar Milan of a government hospital in Udaikishanganj told IANS.
He said that it was a blessing that despite her age, she has become a mother for the first time.
News of the old woman giving birth to a child spread like wildfire in the area with hundreds of people visiting the relief camp to see her.
Chandan Devi’s husband Kari Ram, who is blind, was happy after becoming a father.
The poor couple would be given Rs.11,000 by the state government.
Last month Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had announced that each girl child born in relief camps would be given Rs.11,000 and a baby boy would get Rs.10,000.
The government officials involved in relief claimed that arrangements have been made in relief camps for delivery of children.
Hundreds of pregnant women have given birth to children in the last one and a half months at different relief camps in flood affected districts of Madhepura, Supaul, Saharsa, Araria and Purnia.
More than three million people in over 1,000 village were rendered homeless and over one million cattle affected by the floods.
About 989,000 people were evacuated to safer places and over 350,000 people have taken shelter in over 300 relief camps in flood-affected areas, according to officials.
The calamity has claimed over 191 lives, according to official estimates. However, voluntary agencies fear the number could be in thousands once all bodies are recovered.