KALABURAGI: In this village in Yadgir district, nine per cent of the population is physically or mentally challenged. On an average, one out of every three households has a differently-abled person.
Evoor Thanda (Sevanagar), 40 km from Surpur, has been living with this problem for years. It has a population of about 2,000 (500 families). Of whom 190 are physically or mentally challenged.
Making matters worse is that 50 per cent of them are children.
Visually challenged and hearing impaired people are the most common in the village. In fact, there is one family of three members here and incidentally all of them are visually challenged.
In another bizarre case, a health worker (ASHA) of the village recently gave birth to a deaf and mute baby.
The first health camp was organised in this village only 15 months ago.
Experts attribute the birth defects to genetic defects. But no concrete study has been done so far to find out the exact problem.
Medical officer of Malla primary health center Vishwanath says hygiene is a major issue in the village. But that does not answer the basic question — why so many birth defects?
Very little appears to be done by the government to improve the general health of the villagers here. A reverse osmosis plant is the only notable work done by the government at the village.