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Kushinagar (UP): While September was National Nutrition Month, Musahars in UP are dying of starvation, said a report on Monday. The Musahars are a Mahadalit community that depends on rats as their primary source of nutrition. However, according to The Times of India, the administration took note of their condition only after two brothers, 16 and 22 respectively, lost their lives on September 14.
Sonwa Devi, their mother, got some food from the administration when her sons died, ostensibly due to starvation. A pile of foodgrains in her room was a sight for her neighbours, said the report. A few kilometres away, in Rakba Dulma Patti village, Virendra Musahar lost his wife Sangeeta and six-year-old son Shyam on September 6. His daughter Geeta, two months old, passed away five days later. “We survive on anything that is eatable,” Virendra told the daily. He had sold off his handcart a few months ago to feed his family. The daily wage labourer has hardly got any work since.
Sangeeta was registered with MGNREGA but her card is empty because she did not get any work. Officials left food grain with Virendra when she died but those won’t last forever.
“My 10-year-old son Laxman died some years ago in a similar manner. These packets of food and money will delay our deaths for some time,” he said.
Government officials insist the deaths were not hunger-related even as starvation has haunted the community for ages. According to government records, Sangeeta and her kids died of diarrhoea. Kushinagar s chief medical officer Haricharan Singh said Sonwa Devi s boys died of cardiorespiratory failure and pulmonary tuberculosis. One of them also had poliomyelitis. “The two brothers didn t die of hunger but from TB. A probe is underway to see if they got treatment for the disease. Our government has given jobs, ration cards and houses to Musahars. The family had a ration card too,” UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath had said shortly after the deaths.
But TB officer Rakesh Kumar from Padrauna block said that tests done by him revealed no such thing. “Senior officials have been warning me not to reveal the truth,” he told the daily. Sonwa Devi also trashed the claim. “Government doctors kept telling us there was nothing wrong with my boys. Staff asked for money to get them admitted. They died within hours of being admitted, without food or medicine,” she said. “We do not have a ration card, but a number which we have to quote at the PDS shop, which gives us what and how much it wants.”
“Rats and snails are what help us survive,” said Usha of the neighbouring village. “Most of us live on daily wages. We get only rice or wheat from PDS shops. We have no idea how much they give us, but it’s too little. When we need money for anything else, including medicines, we sell the grains to city people. When we fall sick, we just die.
https://m.timesofindia.com/india/in...tle-starvation-death/articleshow/66112623.cms
Sonwa Devi, their mother, got some food from the administration when her sons died, ostensibly due to starvation. A pile of foodgrains in her room was a sight for her neighbours, said the report. A few kilometres away, in Rakba Dulma Patti village, Virendra Musahar lost his wife Sangeeta and six-year-old son Shyam on September 6. His daughter Geeta, two months old, passed away five days later. “We survive on anything that is eatable,” Virendra told the daily. He had sold off his handcart a few months ago to feed his family. The daily wage labourer has hardly got any work since.
Sangeeta was registered with MGNREGA but her card is empty because she did not get any work. Officials left food grain with Virendra when she died but those won’t last forever.
“My 10-year-old son Laxman died some years ago in a similar manner. These packets of food and money will delay our deaths for some time,” he said.
Government officials insist the deaths were not hunger-related even as starvation has haunted the community for ages. According to government records, Sangeeta and her kids died of diarrhoea. Kushinagar s chief medical officer Haricharan Singh said Sonwa Devi s boys died of cardiorespiratory failure and pulmonary tuberculosis. One of them also had poliomyelitis. “The two brothers didn t die of hunger but from TB. A probe is underway to see if they got treatment for the disease. Our government has given jobs, ration cards and houses to Musahars. The family had a ration card too,” UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath had said shortly after the deaths.
But TB officer Rakesh Kumar from Padrauna block said that tests done by him revealed no such thing. “Senior officials have been warning me not to reveal the truth,” he told the daily. Sonwa Devi also trashed the claim. “Government doctors kept telling us there was nothing wrong with my boys. Staff asked for money to get them admitted. They died within hours of being admitted, without food or medicine,” she said. “We do not have a ration card, but a number which we have to quote at the PDS shop, which gives us what and how much it wants.”
“Rats and snails are what help us survive,” said Usha of the neighbouring village. “Most of us live on daily wages. We get only rice or wheat from PDS shops. We have no idea how much they give us, but it’s too little. When we need money for anything else, including medicines, we sell the grains to city people. When we fall sick, we just die.
https://m.timesofindia.com/india/in...tle-starvation-death/articleshow/66112623.cms
