The silent sufferers

Kanaklata Ghadei, Sasmita Moahaptra, Ribika Pradhan or Manasi Bhuyan and many like them from neighbouring rural pockets of the capital city of Bhubaneswar are some of the women, who have been harrowing experiences post demonitisation. Mostly single earning members of their families, these women have to manage with the paltry money that their small time business fetches them after currency circulation lessened. The village haats these women frequented on some days of the week are now wearing a deserted look with most of the women staying home, selling their produce from the doorsteps of their houses. Even the capital main haat, where these women had bought spaces to sell, have now been sublet to other men. Despite all this, neither have the village market committees helped them nor has anyone from the government visited them to ask about their problems. In fact, in the periphery villages, since the market committees do not count village women as businesswomen, they do not pay any heed to their problems. The women interviewed here strangely belong to places where BJD has its legislators and parliamentarians! And Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, has been the first one, to appreciate the step when rural economy with women as strong players, has been crumbling.

Earnings lessened from Rs 1200 to Rs 150 per day

Selling vegetables, dried fish, betel leaf, kirana materials have been their only means of sustenance. Earning between Rs 1000 to Rs 1500 every day, these women burnt their hearths to run their families of average 4 to 5 people. But things changed for them once currency notes started changing circulation. Women from the periphery villages of the city like Madanpur, Sankarsanpur, Dumduma and Antudi  or the little distant Nirakarpur are left with little earning. Their daily average now  varies between Rs 150 and  Rs 300 in contrast to Rs 1000 to Rs 1500 earlier.

 Kanaklata Ghadai, 55 year old vegetable seller from Jajpur

For someone who left her ancestral place in Jajpur district to single handedly run her family in capital city’s Sankareswar village in the city outskirts, Kanaklata is too bitter about the demonitisation impact, which she names as ‘paisa her pher’.  ‘’Nothing is good about this change, it has made life miserable.  Am a widow and run a family of five. I used to sell my produce in nearby Khandagiri weekly haat on Wednesdays and Sundays. Now I have stopped going there. Because people come with Rs 2000 currency notes and I do not have any means to give them change. Even Rs 500 is not in circulation. I have a zero balance account and an ATM card but neither do I know how to operate it nor money in the bank to transact,’’ she says with tears flowing down her eyes. She is now restricted to selling a few vegetables from her doorsteps and settles with whatever the villagers buy from her . ‘’In haats, people came with big denominations and asked for half kilo tomato or a kilo of potato. Now how do I give them change,? ‘’ she questions.

Ribika Pradhan, 35, from Phulbani, works as a maid after demonitisation

The 35-year-old widow came to the city with her husband to help him run his vegetable business but after her husband died, she started getting into his shoes. But in the last two months, she has turned a maid from a small time businesswoman. Reason, she could not sell her wares anymore. Fetching turmeric, tamarind, honey and herbs from her village in Phulbani, she was adding to the family income. Now, even though there are no takers for these forest produce, she has been trying to sell vegetables for the last three years and run her family. But that too has now not giving her enough to sustain. She has been forced to turn a maid at different houses to eke a living. ‘’I earned Rs 1500 every day and my husband did around Rs 2000 but now alone, I manage to sell ony Rs 50 to Rs 100 every day. I was forced to work as a maid and even then my problems have not ended. The house owners too do not have change of Rs 700 to pay me every month. SO they have asked me to wait for three months so that they can pay me Rs 2100 together as they too don’t have lower denomination currency notes. I have an ATM card in SBI, but I don’t dare to withdraw because only Rs 2000 is coming out of it,’’ she says with remorse. She now stays in Saradhapalli slums and barely manages two squaremeals a day.

Sasmita Mohapatra, 30, kirana store and vegetable seller from Chatua village, Khurda district

‘’I never wanted to sell vegetables or run a kirana store from home. My husband failed to get work as an electric contractor and I had to start running a business. I accompanied him to the vegetable weekly market a little away from Khandagiri to sell, but in the last two months the business dipped to an all time low. I don’t understand demonitisation, but something went wrong with currency notes. People came with bigger denominations and my husband had to move from one shop to another to get change. Rs 500 has not come to the marker and no one even offers that to  us. The 500 note would have helped us sail through but we never get one. Giving a change for Rs 500 is easy in comparison to Rs 2000 notes,’’ she explains as per her understanding. Business for her has come down and there is no village committee or market committee to bail them out. ‘’Its all our own business and no one offers to help us though we have committees to look after the welfare of villages,’’ she says wryly.

Women businesswomen from Dhenkanal and Angul districts

These two districts witness the maximum number of women getting into small time business. From selling forest produce to vegetables, these women are regulars at Nuahaat, a few kilometres from Dhenkanal town. They come in hordes and sell their produce in two hours before returning home richer by Rs 1200 to Rs 1500 daily. However, post, demonitisation, hardly do they earn much and they have none to complain other than curse their destiny. ‘’All of a sudden there was no money and we are left in the lurch. We earn much less in comparison to earlier days. These days coming to haat does not evoke much enthusiasm in us as we go back with a paltry sum. These women echo the voices of all others of their ilk in Gondia, Kapilas, Sankarpur, all situated in the periphery of Dhenkanal district.

Bandh proves battleground more than fight for a cause

fidence of sorting things out through discussions.

Bhubaneswar bandh on Wednesday turned the major thoroughfares of the city into a battleground with the Bharatiya Janata Party, that had called the bandh, and the ruling Biju Janata Dal getting into a violent mode. The protest that began from dawn with BJP workers picketing on the junctions not allowing any vehicles to pass by started witnessing maddening scenes with the party workers burning and damaging vehicles besides beating up people who did not pay heed. Shops were left with broken windows and hoardings pulled down.

As if that was not enough the ruling BJD, that has been in the eye of many storms since the past couple of years in the fourth term of Naveen Patnaik as chief minister (health issues, law and order problems), made matters worse by trying to foil BJP’s bandh attempts.  Scores of BJD workers were seen zooming past in two wheelers antagonising the BJP party workers and not allowing them to stop vehicles. Some BJP women workers who were sitting on the roads were hushed away and abused by the rowdy BJD workers who threw all norms to wind, right in front of the police.

This led to scuffles near Utkal University campus and Ram Mandir square with the police, as usual,  remaining a mute spectator till the damage was done. Scores of workers from both parties were injured and rushed to hospital. Police, feigned ignorance about calculating the expected  magnitude of violence.

The bandh, called demanding resignation of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation Mayor’s resignation over his alleged link in a murder case and a sex slur associated with the case, was certainly successful as most offices witnessed thin attendance and schools remained empty. The state secretariat was no exception, where even the ministers and secretaries failed to reach on time while many officers were seen entering through back doors.

Violent politics which was the mantra of Congress till now has taken the BJD to a large extent and BJP to a some extent, into its destructive fold.  The recent violence on campuses of the state before and after elections exposed the chinks in the armour of the BJD and today’s incident has once again raised question marks on its insecurity. Not long back, the BJD legislators were also seen involved in violence during black flag and egg hitting protests by the BJP and the Congress.  It has brought to fore the party’s fear about losing to either of the parties in issues affecting the state.

 Its time Naveen Patnaik, known for being strict with his rank and file in case  of  any indiscipline, rose to the occasion to stop his partymen’s behaviour on roads before more damage is done to at least not set any more precedence.  Instead of dodging meeting Opposition members on the floor of the House or secretariat, a man who has romped home victorious over and over again, must have the confidence of sorting things out through discussions.

Power of collective responsibility: its time to own up

It is the alerts about a possible cyclonic storm in the Bay of Bengal that has calmed the heat prevailing over sum hospital fire tragedy since a week. But the incident will certainly haunt the collective conscience of the state as a grim reminder about the failing health situation in the state, which made the health minister of the state tender his resignation two days back. But the buck does not stop here, for, the tragedy has exposed the can of worms the government department officials had been feeding in for over years, questioning their need in the system.

In the last 16 years of BJD government nothing has changed in the health care system in Odisha. A trip down memory lane pre 2000 era suggests the state had the same set of problems as now and the archives are a testimony to it all. There were less hospitals, doctors, infrastructure, medicines,  medical students and colleges, vaccines etc. And the things that were more were malnutirion cases, deaths due to inability to access doctors and hospitals. Nothing much has changed now. What has changed in the Naveen Patnaik ruled state for three and half terms are a host of health care schemes like the 108/102 ambulance service, Niramaya scheme that provides free medicines, Swasthya Bima Yojana , Mamata Yojana, the Mahaprayan  scheme etc which the CM dedicated to the state at intervals.  The implementation of these schemes have however eluded the majority of population in the state. Because the health departments including the minister and the secretaries responsible for implementing the schemes and monitoring the same through their down-in-line officials have not done their work. Which is why free medicines are not available in the Niramaya stores in government hospitals, ambulance failures have brought out Dana Majhis and failure of Janani  express makes us wake up to cases of pregnant women dying before delivery or on way to the hospital. At present,  the state is grappling with Japanese encephalitis where more than 69 have succumbed in 46 days and in recent past Nagada (Jajpur) malnutrition had taken a toll of 19 children. Schemes and statements remain rhetorics.

Coming to the infrastructure, in early 2000, when the state was looking up in driving the health sector index, private hospitals mushroomed and so did the diagnostic labs. Even some of these hospitals  went on to become medical colleges of repute. A case in point is IMS and SUM hospital (2005-06) which has 650 MBBS seats, 150 PG seats, 1000 nursing seats and as many dental seats in the state besides running a 700-bedded 24-hour hospital. It was during this phase that permissions were granted dime a dozen to all those who wished to have their medical education or treatment institutions. Naturally, the upbeat scenario gave them all clearances by the same government to go ahead and never bothered for 10 years about patients’ safety and security till a tragedy like SUM happened. A hospital that was most frequented by the less privileged ones and offered services of the best medics in the industry free of cost for years, and later on on subsidized prices, Sum suddenly  fell from grace. Besides the government cancelling all its empanelments and schemes applicable there, the Khurda district collector has gone on record to say the hospital did not possess an NoC to run its operations. An addition,  the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) that  perpetually remains in slumber, stated that the hospital was running without an occupancy certificate.

Now, why were there no objections raised to these issues if norms were flouted at all levels in the last 10 years? How could a government allow a hospital to run and treat over 1000 OPD patients every day without an occupancy certificate? Why did the district collector not cancel the licence of the hospital if the registration was not renewed and NOC not received?  And most importantly, how did the hospital get the clearance from MCI if it did not have any of the important documents in place? The case dittoes for all the 1700 private hospitals and nursing homes in the state who have unanimously stated their applications for renewal of registration and fire safety are pending clearance from the government despite reminders. On November 1, these hospitals will cease work in protest.

Last but not the least, the NHRC seeking its report from the state government has stated that only three private hospitals in the state have all the fire safety measures in place. Now if the government was well aware of repercussions and came up with the Fire safety Act years back, the onus of implementation naturally lied with the Fire department. An Act formulated 23 years ago, has no rules been framed till now. But a department that functions under direct supervision of the chief minister Naveen Patnaik remained indolent about monitoring or raiding hospitals to check whether safety measures are in place. Not a surprise then, the lacunae if any, was not found out till the accident happened. Ironically, the fire department has issued an NoC to BDA about SUM’s fitness to operate. Applications, around thousands, pile up in the fire department to get lost.

Let’s accept, the government machinery in the state has turned carcinogenic. Starting from bureaucrats who run the show in Odisha to the departments like fire and BDA, do not bother till disasters strike and then fail to own up their failure. It is not only the health minister who accepted the failure of his department, its time for the bureaucracy to be cleaned of its senility and take responsibility. In a face saving measure, the government officials’ blame game will make more skeletons tumble from the cupboard pointing at their  inefficiency and callousness!
Pic: patch.com