Post News Network
Keonjhar, August 16: Although 68 years have passed since Independence, millions are still in the grip of poverty and deprivation in the country.
The government claims spending crores of rupees every year to eliminate poverty. But, millions of people like Rabi Nayak, who lives in a makeshift shanty near a nullah in the district headquarters town of Keonjhar, are left to suffer silently. His shanty, covered with tin asbestos, torn polythene sheets and rags hanging all around, indicate the squalid condition he lives in.
Afflicted by multiple diseases and bent with the age, Nayak has been reduced to a bag of bones.
He survives on whatever food is offered to him by others out of pity.
Allegedly abandoned by his family, elderly Rabi has none to take care of him. Due to lack of food and treatment, he has now started counting his days.
His sorry state has not been sighted by the administration, Dhiren Panda, a local, said.
Earlier, he used to eke out his living from soothsaying. Panda demanded that the administration should come forward to rescue hapless Rabi and rehabilitate him at an old-age home. “At least his last days can be taken care of and he can die in peace,” Panda added.
