The following is a Press Release dated 16 March 2008 by the Free Binayak Sen Campaign.
Over 125 men, women and children attended the first Free Binayak Sen
Medical Camp held in the Jai Hind basti, a colony of ragpickers and
domestic workers in New Delhi.
They were treated for ailments ranging from anemia and urinary tract
infections among women to respiratory infections and vitamin
deficiencies among children. Free medicines were handed out to
patients and there are plans to train local youth in paramedical work
and take up regular community health activities in the colony.
The camp was organized by the Sajha Manch and Bal Vikas Dhara as part
of a nationwide initiative for the release of popular health and
human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen. Dr Sen was controversially
arrested in May last year on false grounds of having links with
Maoists in Chattisgarh and is currently lodged in Raipur jail.
"Most of the problems among the people treated are related to poor
nutrition and low quality of water" said Dr Amod, one of the doctors
volunteering his services for the camp.
The menfolk in the Jai Hind colony, which has over 1500 families
mostly migrants from Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, work as
ragpickers bring the garbage from nearby residential areas for sorting
back to their homes. This contributes to the lack of unhygienic
conditions in the area.
While local organizations, like Bal Vikas Dhara, have over the years
organized the community and wrested major concessions from the local
municipality such as free provision of drinking water, health check
ups and vaccination for children there are many problems that remain.
For example there are no toilets for this large community of over
10,000 people, no electricity connections and also no supply of
rations from the public distribution system.
"We are taking up these issues one by one with the authorities but
still there is a lot of discrimination against rag pickers" says
Subal, an organizer with Bal Vikas Dhara.
The entire colony is located on private land, controlled by some kind
of land mafia that rents it out to waste contractors who are the ones
who own all the houses in which the ragpickers live. Each ragpicker
gets a house and a bicycle free from different contractors in return
for which they have to sell (at low prices) the waste they collect
every day.
The initiative, of holding monthly Free Binayak Sen Medical Camps for
the urban and rural poor, in cities and towns around the country – is
meant to raise public awareness about Dr Sen's detention under the
draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, and call for his
unconditional release.
The camps are also part of an effort to take forward Dr Sen's
innovative public health work to new areas and highlight the issues of
nutrition, child health and the link between socio-economic rights and
health. India has one of the worst health indicators in the world,
even lower than that of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in the areas
of infant and maternal mortality.
Other camps are planned for March in Chennai, Coimbatore, Bangalore
and Kolkata.
For further information contact:
Dunu Roy, New Delhi qadeeroy@vsnl.com
Ph: 9910687627
Satya Sivaraman, New Delhi satyasagar@gmail.com Ph: 9818514952
Dr Rakhal Gaitonde, Chennai subharakhal@gmail.com
Ph: 9940246089
Dr Punyabrata Gun, Kolkata shramajibiswasthya@yahoo.co.in Ph: 9830922194
Dr N.Devadasan, Bangalore mail@phindia.org
Ph: 080-26645232
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