BHUBANESWAR: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued notices to the state government over the death of three tribal women after consuming mango kernel gruel in Mandipanka village in Kandhamal district last month.
The apex human rights panel asked the chief secretary and collector of Kandhamal to submit a detailed report and actions taken thereafter within four weeks.
The direction came following a petition filed by Supreme Court lawyer and civil rights activist Radhakanta Tripathy, who cited media reports highlighting the state of affairs of marginalised tribals in the hillside village.
Citing that three women died and four were hospitalised after consuming mango kernel gruel, the petitioner alleged that they were compelled to consume the inedible stuff due to food scarcity and died of food poisoning.
“The tribal women took the desperate measure of consuming the gruel due to inadequate and delayed supply of rice under the National Food Security Act (NFSA). This is not an isolated case but continuation of a series of such tragedies in the tribal pockets where several people consume mango kernels in the absence of sufficient food,” he alleged.
The geography of hunger has not changed decade after decade and the Mandipanka tragedy has shown that nothing has changed in Odisha even 23 years after the 2001 Rayagada hunger deaths which had become a national shame, the petitioner pointed out.
Stating that tribals have no other means of survival, and five kg of rice per person per month, distributed once three months, is not sufficient for them, Tripathy had requested the NHRC to investigate the matter through the Special Rapporteur of the Commission.