“Give my money back. Don’t take away the land and ruin my family,” screams 52-year-old Ramamani Behera of Karnajibindha village of Balasore district, about 240 km from Bhubaneswar.
Mentally unsound woman chained by husband for 18 months who claims IOC project left his land barren and his family with no money for her treatment
BALASORE (Orissa): “Give my money back. Don’t take away the land and ruin my family,” screams 52-year-old Ramamani Behera of Karnajibindha village of Balasore district, about 240 km from Bhubaneswar.
Ramamani has been chained to a post for the last one-and-a-half-year. “Oh, save me from this hell,” she cried when she saw this correspondent. A few goats and chickens were freely roaming around as Ramamani remained confined.
Inhuman though he may appear, the person who has kept her chained, husband Sanatan, said he was forced to do so due to her insanity which often makes her violent. He added that family’s poverty has prevented him from being able to afford any treatment for her. “I have no income and cannot purchase medicine,” Sanatan said.
The family derived a meagre income from land, but that too has ceased after the Indian Oil Corporation’s Haldia-Paradip pipeline was laid under it laid in 2005-06.
Though Sanatan received Rs 12,400 as compensation from the oil major, the contractor did not level his land properly. Consequently, one part of the field is water-logged, while another is deprived of water. “I have no money to level the field,” he said, adding cultivation no longer yields adequate returns.
The couple has seven children, but only one of their six married daughters looks after Ramamani. Their only son, who is studying computer science in Balasore, meets his own expenses by teaching school children.
Sanatan said the family would earlier get Rs 30,000 to Rs 35,000 from this land per annum. Now it is a meagre Rs 10,000 per annum. With the depleting income from agriculture, the family survives on doles from sons-in-law.
“You have also come to cheat my family and ruin me,” Ramamani screamed at this correspondent. Villagers attribute her madness itself to the abject poverty, though it is not directly linked to the construction of the pipeline.
A visit to Sanatan’s field revealed that a part of the 327-km long pipeline passes under the land. But the field has not been levelled properly. However, the contractor managed to get a no-objection certificate from the family in June 2007, stating the land was satisfactorily restored.
IOC’s project in-charge H Parekha said the allegation was baseless, adding the family was given adequate compensation. “We also obtained an NoC from the family about the levelling of the ground,” he said, adding he would visit the areas next week to look into the matter.
Though Sanatan admitted to have signed on the dotted line on a no-objection certificate, he pleaded innocent. “I signed without considering the consequences,” he said.
Villagers alleged the contractor had done similar “injustice” to other people too.
With his wife chained for nearly 18 months now, all Sanatan does is curse his fate. “I am ruined,” he said.
subhashish_m@yahoo.com
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