A fact-finding team constituted by a citizens’ forum found unusually high incidents of chronic kidney disease in a cluster of villages in Chhattrapur block of Ganjam district. Sharing its findings with media persons here, the team said it had visited the villages Badaputti, P Lakhimpur and Baginipetta and interviewed 25 affected people, their families and local leaders.

The team had also interacted with the district collector, IRL officers and nephrologists of MKCG Medical college hospital. All the persons interviewed and cases cited were substantiated with diagnostic reports, treatment records and medical certificates. Records from local activists mention at least 200 cases diagnosed over the last three years, with at least 70 deaths, most of them of individuals of working age.

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The persons interviewed spoke of how they have been completely impoverished by the disease. Most if not all of the persons interviewed are landless agricultural workers depending on seasonal work and collection of forest produce. In the absence of limited facilities at the MKCG Medical College, patients are forced to resort to private doctors and clinics. Average treatment costs are reported to be in the range of 5-7 lakhs over two years.

Families have no alternative but to sell or mortgage their tiny landholdings land and meagre assets, and have been compelled to take loans from private sources at interest rates of 2-3pc per month. The affected villages are also the locations where land was acquired on long-term lease by Indian Rare Earth Ltd, a PSU under the Department of Atomic Energy, in the late 1980s.

These lands were thickly forested with cashew trees that provided a source of income for the villagers. Although compensatory afforestation has been carried out on the reverted land, the trees are not yet yielding fruit. This has caused considerable loss to the community.

None of the persons interviewed have been able to access any entitlements available through government programmes such as health insurance (eg under Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Bima Yojana) or work in the lean season under MNREGA. Many families seem to be surviving primarily on the cheap rice available under the 1/- kilo scheme.

The local population alleged that the kidney ailments are due to contamination of ground water by toxic by products of monazite processing at the Indian Rare Earth facility located about one kilometer away from Badaputti village.

The district administration and officials of IREL refuted this charge and showed results of water testing conducted by the Regional Pollution Control Board, the State Public Health Engineering officials and a district medical official, which declared the water to be fit for drinking. Dr Saroj K Panda, consultant nephrologist at the MKCG hospital said dialysis facilities in MKCG hospital were limited as a result of which patients had to seek private treatment.

He said the high rate of chronic kidney disease in the affected villages is a new phenomenon in the area and is definitely the result of one or more environmental factors, of which contamination of water and food are strong possibilities. The team was able to access the report of a study undertaken by the district health department in 2015, following an intervention by the NHRC in response to a petition from a local person.

The study report (a copy of which was shared by the CDMO’s office) speculated that likely causes could be contamination of water with heavy metals or pesticides, or inhalation of pollutants expelled into the air by the IREL facility.

The report recommended evacuation and resettlement of the affected villages pending investigation and remediation of the problem. The team called for immediate investigation by a expert team, free treatment, provision of clean safe drinking water to every household etc. The fact-finding team comprised of Dr Kalyani Menon- Sen, Dr Nisha Biswas, Basudev Mahapatra and Ranjana Padhi.