Kashipur (Orissa), September 9
At least 20,000 persons, mostly the old and children, are in urgent need of help in Kashipur block of Rayagada district, Orissa, even as the death toll has risen to 23 with two more persons succumbing to mango kernel paste in Tikri.

Hunger has forced the tribals in this region to eat mango kernel, ragi and tamarind seeds at time when the country has 50 million tonnes of foodgrains as against the required buffer stocks of 17 million tonnes and the FCI godowns are facing the problem of storage.

While the farmers in Punjab and Haryana, with their bumper harvest are looking forward to a remunerative price for their produce, the tribals in this backward district of Orissa are eagerly awaiting their next meal.

The state government maintains that no starvation death has occurred in Orissa and Chief Minister Navin Patnaik, who toured the affected region, later reiterated that “no starvation death has taken place”.

The District Collector of Rayagada, Mr Bishnupada Sethi, maintains no one has died of starvation in Kashipur. “By no stretch of imagination can these deaths be called starvation deaths”, he stated categorically.

The semantic debate whether it is starvation death or not continues, but the fact remains that the people in this predominantly tribal region are forced to eat mango kernel paste as their last harvest had failed.

Though semantically what the state government maintains is correct as starvation death means that no food was found in the stomach of the deceased.

Since June-July this year, when the monsoon struck, the people have gone without work. The tribals supplemented their meagre rice supplies with mango kernels, ragi and tamarind seeds.

Mango kernel or tanku peejaw as it is locally called is a thick paste of boiled mango seeds, which costs nothing to prepare. The paste is what thousands of tribal are consuming in Kashipur to keep themselves alive and they continue to do so even after the state government promised food for work programme.

In Panasguda village, where seven persons have died consuming mango kernel paste, villagers said they continue to consume it as they have no alternative.

“We have to fill our stomach with something or other to survive. Does the government give us proper food? Does anybody think of feeding us? There is nobody for us,” said Kailash Majhi.

Asked about the government’s scheme of exchanging mango kernel with rice, he said they have exchanged equivalent amount. “Each family was given 7 kg of rice for the mango kernel surrendered,” he said, adding that “how long will that rice last. So we did not surrender all the mango kernel”.

The Tribune had a close look at the mango kernel withheld by the villagers. It was black in colour with fungus formation already appearing on it. When asked whether they would eat this poisonous kernel, the villagers said they had no option.

Contrary to the general argument that mango kernel is a traditional food item in this area, it was found that people have converted it into their staple diet because they have neither the land to produce paddy nor the purchasing power to buy rice from the market.

But food insecurity looms. And the tribals of Kashipur, with little work in hand, are increasingly getting vulnerable. Their rugged terrain together with the near total absence of irrigation in the district has made the going worse.

The scantily-clad, ill-fed children scampering around the tiny hamlets are proof that little has changed for Kashipur’s tribals though there has been a lot of hue and cry over their plight.

Rayagada district comes in the old KBK zone of undivided Kalahandi, Bolongir and Koraput districts in Orissa, which predominantly tribal dominated region and little has changed over the years.