Malkangiri ‘poverty’ death sparks row

Bhubaneswar: Assembly speaker S N Patro on Monday asked the government to seek a report from the administration of Malkangiri district, where an impoverished woman reportedly killed herself by consuming poison after feeding some to her two children on Saturday.
“Revenue and disaster management minister (Sudam Marndi) is asked to call for a report from the Malkangiri collector,” Patro told the assembly after opposition BJP and Congress members expressed concern over the issue.
Locals of Goudaguda village in the southern Odisha district alleged that the woman — widow Sita Madkami (30) who worked as a daily-wage worker to feed a family of five — took the extreme step because of acute poverty. The district administration had strongly denied their claim.
While she died on Sunday morning, her five-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter are now out of danger.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Malkangiri MLA Aditya Madhi of BJP said it was deplorable that Sita, whose husband died of tuberculosis last year, would not get widow pension; nor did she have a pucca house under either the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or the Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana. “The government should find out the lapses and fix responsibility (for the death),” he said.
Madhi added that the woman held a ration card but would not get the full quota of rice it guaranteed. “The government must act against the errant officials who allowed this to happen,” he said.
Sambalpur MLA Jayanarayan Mishra of BJP said the incident reflected the real picture of the state, and belied the government’s claims of improvement in social indices. Jatni MLA Suresh Routray of Congress said Malkangiri was 600km away from the state capital and so the government was not responsive to tragedies there. “This is a grave injustice. The government has done nothing for the poor,” he said.