Vadde Ramadevi is about 13 years old. Every morning, she cooks for her brother, Hari Krishna, and sister, Mamatha, and leaves for school at around 8 a.m. She is a class 6 student at the Government High School in Kagaz Maddur, and to reach there, she has to walk about four kilometres.
Hari accompanies Ramadevi to school, but sometimes he has to miss classes so as to attend to some household chores, like collecting ration rice or gas cylinder. While Ramadevi cooks food, Hari takes over the responsibility of outside works. Since Mamatha is mentally-challenged, there isn’t much that she can help out with.
These three children became orphans when their mother, Yadamma, passed away in November last year. Their father, Srinivas, passed away six years ago, and they are living on the pension of Rs. 1,500 being extended by the government to Mamatha under the disabled category.
Yadamma, a member of Mallikarjuna SHG group, took a loan of Rs. 30,000 from a bank before her death. Soon after her death, about Rs. 20,000 was repaid to the bank. To collect the remaining amount, the bank officials have been collecting a monthly amount of Rs. 1,000 from the stipend of Mamatha.
Believe it or not, for the past three months these three children are living off Rs. 500 a month they get after the bank deducts Rs. 1,000 from the stipend of Mamatha.
“We have paid Rs. 2,000 so far and we have to pay another Rs. 8,000 for the loan. We do not know how to live with Rs. 500 every month,” says Hari. They cannot even purchase vegetables, and depend on their aunt, Mangamma, staying next door, for any sort of help
“These children need assistance from government or philanthropists. We hope that the Collector will respond once the issue is brought to his notice,” said P. Srinivas Goud, former president of Nagaram village, in which Kodiypyaka is a hamlet.
