Student's suicide: Collector shifted

BERHAMPUR: Odisha government on Sunday transferred collector (Gajapati) Basudev Bahinipati in wake of suicide by tribal nursing student Sunita Raita on August 13. She was allegedly denied stipend.
Manasi Sambhal, project director, District Rural Development Agency, Mayurbhanj, replaced Bahinipati, a general administration department notification said.
Sunita allegedly hanged herself in her house as she could not get financial assistance to pursue her BSc (nursing) course in a private institute in Bhubaneswar.She was supposed to get Rs 54,000 a year during the course duration from Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), Paralakhemundi. She had met the district collector and narrated her grievance at a camp at R Udayagiri on August 11.
In a suicide note, discovered two days after her death, the 21-year-old girl blamed the district collector and ITDA project administrator (PA) Kalayan Kumar Rath for her extreme step, police said.
"We have seized the note. The hand-writing of the deceased will be examined by police hand-writing bureau to confirm its authenticity," said SP (Gajapati) CS Meena. Police are also investigating all angles of the case, Meena said.
Bahinipati had earlier said he had sanctioned the amount the very next day when she met him at grievance redressal camp. "We had taken prompt action," he had said.
Sudam, father of the deceased, is a daily-wage labourer. He said the administration did not take her problem seriously though she had approached the PA, ITDA, several times in the past few months.
Last year, the ITDA had sponsored 103 students to pursue auxiliary nurse midwifery training in four select institutes in Berhampur, Bhubaneswar and Paralakhemundi. However, Sunita had taken admission in a different institute. "The sanction of money was delayed as she had taken admission in an institute of her choice. She had applied for the assistance in November last year," Rath said.