JAGATSINGHPUR: Six-year-old Rudra Narayan Biswal is still waiting for his parents to return home from the hospital. “I will celebrate Raja only after seeing my parents,” he says with moist eyes as he refuses to wear the new clothes his relatives have gifted him.
Little does the little one from Bhairipur village under Balikuda block know that fate has played a cruel hand and both his parents as well as his grandfather have been snatched away by the pandemic. Mother Rashmirekha, father Abhisek and grandfather Upendra succumbed in the Covid hospital last month. But relatives do not know how to break the news to the boy who still awaits his family’s return.
Like Rudra, 11-year-old Debasmita Barik and her two siblings, aged 9 and 6, from Tiruna village under Naugaon are devastated after their father and grandfather died. Now living with their mother and grandmother, the trio has not celebrated Raja after the family lost its breadwinners.
For children, ‘Raja’ comes with revelry of various kind - news clothes, food, swings and loads of fun. But the brutal second wave of Covid has taken away their happiness and part of the childhood too associated with the festival. “Had my father been alive, he would have bought new dresses and cosmetics for us to celebrate Raja. Now, festive cheer is a dream for us,” says Debasmita as she begins to sob.
The pandemic has also burdened the kids with financial hardships too. Tiruna sarpanch Nirupama Das said, Deepak Barik, father of the three children, sustained his family of seven. “We are now collecting funds for the family but the government must come to their rescue,” she added. Such tragic stories abound across villages of the district and robbed the sheen of Raja this year.
As per National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), the number of children orphaned by Covid in the country between April 1 and May 31 stands at 9,346 of which 1,000 children lost both parents. Odisha Government too is generating weekly reports from districts.
In Jagatsinghpur, district child protection officer Kanhu Charan Rout said, the second Covid wave has orphaned eight children. The detailed data has been uploaded on the Women and Child Development department portal. The State government will provide pension to them under Madhu Babu Yojana, he added.