After outrage, Odisha government launches scheme to transport bodies

A tribal was forced to walk 10 km carrying dead wife for lack of ambulance

A day after the picture of a tribal man carrying his dead wife on his shoulder walked 10 km in the absence of an ambulance service in Odisha’s Kalahandi district triggered outrage across the country, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched a new scheme, ‘Mahaprayan’, to facilitate transportation of bodies.

Implementation of the new scheme, under which bodies are to be transported from government hospitals and government-affiliated hospitals to the residences of the deceased, was decided in February this year. However, it was launched by Mr. Patnaik at Mahanga in Cuttack district only on Thursday.

The scheme will be available in all 30 district headquarters hospitals and three government medical colleges.

Too late

The launching of the Mahaprayan scheme came too late for Dana Majhi, a tribal from Melghar village in Kalahandi’s Thuamul Rampur block, who had to carry his wife’s body on his shoulder as he had no money for a hearse van. After seeing the sobbing teen-aged daughter accompanying her father, the locals demanded the administration’s intervention for shifting the body.

Waking up late, the Kalahandi district administration ordered a probe into the incident.

‘No sympathy’

Former MP Bhakta Charan Das said, “Although the Naveen Patnaik government ruined public health service during its 16 years of rule, there is no dearth of private vehicles for carrying bodies. A sympathetic administration should have come forward and helped the poor tribal villager.”

Mr. Das claimed that Rogi Kalyan Samitis (Patient Welfare Committees) across the State were having ruling Biju Janata Dal cadres as members as a result of which the sympathetic help expected from these committees was not forthcoming for poor people like Dana Majhi.

“From the time a mother conceives to performing of last rites, we have schemes for every occasion. But those schemes were envisaged to garner popular votes. The objectives of these schemes get defeated due to poor implementation,” said Biswapriya Kanungo, human rights activist, who is taking up the issue of dignity of dead bodies with the State Human Rights Commission.