The death of two children with deformities at Kasargod in Kerala has aggravated the resentment of endosulfan victims and their parents over the continuing neglect towards their plight by the state government.
Alleging that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who attended several functions at Kasargod recently event, denied an opportunity to meet their representatives, the endosulfan victims are even planning to come down to the state capital Thiruvananthapuram to get attention for their plight.
Even as Health Minister Veena George announced last month that a neurologist would be posted in the district, which has been a long-standing demand of endosulfan victims, health department officials said it was in the "process".
Owing to the lack of adequate medical facilities in the district, major chunk of the people depend on hospitals in nearby Mangaluru.
An 11-year-old boy, who was on the endosulfan victims' list, and a five-year-old boy, whose request to get included in the endosulfan victims' list was pending for a couple of years, died in the district on Monday. Owing to the lack of adequate medical facilities for treating those with deformities in Kasargod district, parents of the five-year-old child had to take the child to a hospital in Thiruvananthapuram with the support of an NGO. Even then, the efforts to save life failed.
Endosulfan victims' forum leader Ambalathara Kunhikrishnan said that a medical camp to revise the list of endosulfan victims was not conducted over the last four years. The remediation cell for endosulfan victims is remaining defunct for over one year. As a result requests of hundreds of endosulfan victims to get included in the list of endosulfan victims were long pending.
He also said that since the chief minister did not meet them, the victims were now planning to go down to Thiruvananthapuram to meet him, he said.
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