‘Many die due to kidney diseas around IREL’

A report of kidney disease-related deaths in villages around the Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL) area in Chhtrapur block in Ganjam district was unveiled here on Sunday.

A group of citizens had collected information on such deaths from Badaputi, P Laxmipur and Baginipeta villages, located within two km radius of the IREL.

The team comprising Dr Kalyani Menon Sen from New Delhi, Dr Nisha Biswas from Kolkata, scribe Basudev Mohapatra and Human Rights activist Ranjana Padhi had also called on former district Collector, IREL Project officers, CDMO and MKCH Medical College Hospital Kidney Department Professors and gathered information.

Releasing the report, the team demanded that the district administration investigate into the matter through a team of experts and take preventive measures. The team also demanded awareness programmes held in villages to make people able to identify kidney-related diseases at primary stage and how to prevent it. Among others, Communist leader Bhal Chandra Sadangi, environmentalist Prafulla Samantara, Sankar Prasad Pani, Madhu Sudan Sethi, Sankar Sahu, Raja Suresh and Gurudev Behera were present.