SANGUEM: Sudha Gaonkar has no birth certificate so she doesn’t have a ration card. Her marriage was not registered so she doesn’t have a marriage certificate, which has blocked another route to getting a ration card.
He husband died without succeeding in his efforts to get a Scheduled Tribes caste corticated. After his death, her chances of getting even a caste identity failed.
She is from the Scheduled Tribes and a widow from the extremely remote Netravali village in Sanguem, in the constituency of the Social Welfare Minister Subhash Phal Desai.
But for all practical purposes, she does not exist. Since she does not exist, she doesn’t even get the Rs 2,000 dole under the Dayanand Social Security Scheme (DSSS) for senior citizens, single women, disabled persons and HIV / AIDS patients.
The main objective of the DSSS is to provide financial assistance to the most vulnerable sections of society. So, though Sudha Gaonkar has a name, she has no claim, with no documents to her name to prove that she’s a senior citizen and single/widow, though her husband died 10 years ago.
Being born into an illiterate and poor family, her birth was not registered and that is the root cause of all her problems.
With no ration card, this tuberculosis patient cannot even get grain given to people through the fair price shops. She is not enrolled on the ration card as her marriage is not registered and hence she does not have a Marriage Certificate.
She recalls the various failed efforts made by her late husband to get themselves registered as Scheduled Tribes which did not succeed despite the tedious process, which they found too taxing.
Following her husband’s death, there was nobody to rely upon to get the required caste certificate from the samaj or community and hence she does not have that too.
Given the fact that she is suffering from TB, she is unable to do any hard labour nor able to do simple tasks like washing clothes or utensils and this has been the situation for the last many years.
Sudha is cared for by her daughter who is working for a private firm and earning Rs 400 per day only which is spent on their food and her medicines.
“Even though my daughter is of a marriageable age, I cannot get her married due to my financial condition,” laments Sudha.
The house they live in is dilapidated and threatens to collapse at any moment given the fact that the mud walls have huge cracks. Unfortunately, they cannot even avail of the government scheme to repair their house as they do not have the required Caste Certificate.
“Even the roof is bad as there are broken tiles and we have to put plastic on the roof to prevent water leakage during the monsoons,” she said while pointing out that they live with a damp floor throughout the year except for the two summer months.
As they have no gas cylinder, they use firewood for cooking which worsens Sudha’s tuberculosis and many times she has fainted while blowing onto the firewood to keep the fire blazing.
Faced with these difficulties, Sudha appealed to the government to provide some relief to her and give her some aid to tide over the trying times she and her daughter go through.
Rakhi Naik, who represents Sudha at the panchayat said all her efforts to get some relief have failed . “I now plan to meet the local MLA, who is also the Minister for Social Welfare and hopefully he will work out some solution at least on humanitarian grounds,” said Rakhi.