BHUBANESWAR: Even as the State Government has announced compensation for deaths due to Japanese Encephalitis (JE), human rights activists have demanded equal compensation for non-JE cases and proceedings against erring district officials for failing to control the spread of diseases.
Last month, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had announced that the families of children who died of JE would get Rs 3 lakh and a pucca house each.
Criticising the Government's move to compensate only JE cases, rights activist Radhakanta Tripathy, who had filed a petition after the JE outbreak in 2014, said while only 37 children had died of JE in Malkangiri district last year, more than 100 children died of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), which is equally deadly.
Moreover, Tripathy pointed out that while the Government carried out a mass vaccination drive to prevent JE, there is no vaccine available for AES which spread its tentacles in more than 500 villages in the tribal dominated district.
''How can there be disparity while announcing compensation for victims of the two diseases? Both JE and non-JE cases should be treated equally,'' he said demanding immediate compensation for the left-out families and stringent action against officials for not taking preventive measures after 2014 outbreak that had claimed 11 lives.
The rights activist also questioned the way National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) treated the JE incident. Instead of initiating action for failing to submit response on the earlier petition, how could the rights panel issue a fresh notice to Malkangiri administration taking suo-motu cognizance of media reports? he asked.
Though the State Government submitted a report on the present JE situation at the recently concluded camp court of NHRC, it has not yet filed its response on the notice seeking a report on actions taken to prevent JE deaths after the outbreak in 2014.
In September, 2015, the NHRC had asked Malkangiri Collector to submit a report on the future plan made to prevent the recurrence of the disease.