mangalore today

With no stipend, miseries of endo victims are endless


Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Jan 10, 2020:  Directorate of Health and Family Welfare Services claimed to disbursing stipend to 6,089 out of the total 6,914 endosulfan victims in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada districts.  However, not sufficient has trickled down to the deserving.  Pleas and applications have fallen on deaf ears.

 

endosulfan


RTI activist Sanjeeva Kabaka rues that the endosulfan sufferers are treated as beggars by government officials.  Sajuddin of District Endosulfan Cell admitted that stipend was not deposited in banks due to ‘K2 Updation (treasury)’.   Kabaka said officials have been blaming K2 updation for not issuing stipend to over 360 endosulfan victims in the district since August 2018.

A  mother of three children who are victims of endosulfan poisoning, has been made worse by ‘government officials’.  The three children, who are victims of endosulfan poisoning, are being denied nutritious food, medicines and punished for no fault of theirs by government officials, the lady  from Buderiya near Alankaru village in Kadaba taluk has stated in her letter to member secretary of District Legal Service Authority (DLSA).  The poverty-stricken family was further shattered when the district administration failed to deposit the monthly stipend of Rs 3,000 in the accounts of Rajeevi’s children--Dinesh, Dinaker and Vidya for the past four months.  The mother made many trips to the offices of tahasildar and assitant commissioner (Puttur) but the stipend is yet to be released to her children.

When her pleas for releasing the stipend, sanctioned to her children with 100% disability since 2014, did not receive any response she as a final option wrote a letter to the DLSA.  Unfortunately, the DLSA member secretary’s previous letters to DK DC  on releasing the stipend has been gathering dust. 

In June 2019, DLSA member secretary, responding to a complaint from one a woman of Kadeshivalaya in Bantwal taluk, wrote to DK DC  on releasing stipend to endosulfan victims Mithun and Trupthi.

The woman informed that  her two children were declared as endosulfan victims in 2017 and the stipend was released for a few months in 2018. However, Yamuna’s hopes that the DK DC will respond to a senior judge’s letter and facilitate the release of stipend since 2019, came crashing down.

The woman  has written a second letter to the DLSA stating that even after six months DK DC had not responded to the letter.

A daily wager in Balnadu village in Puttur taluk, said that experts had declared his son Gagan as endosulfan victim (with 25% disability) at a camp.  Nine-year-old Gagan has a blue-coloured smart card (PUP50998) and yet his folk are forced to pledge gold in order to clear the hospital bills.   As Gagan suffers from malnutrition and juvenile diabetes, they have to buy three insulin vials per day,’’ Gowda said. Gowda’s letters to the DLSA, district administration and district health officer on providing medical facilities to Gagan, who is forced to attend classes once a week, has not received any response.  It is fearful that such victims have to suffer while no attention is paid to their cause.