Members of the BJP, the opposition party, staged a dharna in the Legislative Council on Tuesday demanding a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to anyone who dies of dengue. Their demand was in line with the compensation paid to dengue victims of D Salundi village in Mysore taluk recently.
After about 20 minutes of dharna they called it off after IT-BT Minister S R Patil, on directives from Chairman D H Shankaramurthy, promised to discuss this issue with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
Patil said the Chief Minister would make a statement on Wednesday.
Opposition leader D V Sadananda Gowda said they have called off their dharna for the “time being” and would continue if the CM fails make a statement.
The ruling party members tried to convince the Opposition that no government order on the compensation had been issued yet. They also appealed to the members not to discuss matters on the basis of newspaper reports.
However, Sadananda Gowda produced photo copies of four cheques for `1 lakh each distributed by the Mysore Deputy Commissioner to families of the four dengue victims at D Salundi.
While PWD Minister Dr H C Mahadevappa argued that no government should pay compensation for the deaths caused by epidemics, he defended the compensation paid to the dengue victims kin in Salundi.
“I think Siddaramaiah may have used his discretionary powers judiciously and that should not be mistaken by anybody,” he said.
Sadandanda Gowda said his party is not against providing compensation to the victims of Salundi, but they want all families of the dengue victims to get it. By defending its action, the government was trying to politicise the matter, he charged. The Opposition leader said that the need of the hour is to formulate a policy on this subject to prevent confusion in the future.
According to his information, many persons, especially women and children, have died of dengue in the state from January till date.
“We will give a list of persons who have died of dengue and let the government cross examine it with the Health Department and then give each `1 lakh compensation,” he said.
Sadananda Gowda, Dr A H Shivayogiswamy, Ashwath Narayan and Somanna Bevinamarad who spoke in detail on the prevalence of dengue across the State, charged that the government has totally failed to tackle it.
They also gave the names of the persons said to have died of dengue from January 1.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr U T Khader who read out the written reply, said as many as 4,106 suspected dengue death cases have been reported from January 1 to June 5 and 2,946 blood samples have been tested. The tests have revealed 985 positive cases.
Of the four deaths in Mysore taluk, two were due to dengue and other two were due to other reasons. So far, Mysore district has recorded 171 dengue positive cases, he added.
He said two people died at a village in Gokak taluk and Bhadravathi due to dengue.
This written reply drew flak from the Opposition members and they sought to know when only two persons died of dengue in Mysore taluk why the government paid compensation to the other two families. Dr Mahadevappa claimed that the compensation has been given from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund and not from the government treasury.
The Opposition said they do not want to question the discretionary powers of the Chief Minister, but were only questioning ‘partisan’ attitude of the government.