Deputy Commissioner S.B. Bommanahalli has asked Health Department officers today identify a Maharashtra-based farm labourer who delivered her 17th child in Belagavi district.
Following reports that the woman and her family were part of the sugarcane cutting ‘gangs’ or teams of labourers who had come to the cane fields in Belagavi, he asked officers to trace the village the family was residing in. The DC said he had asked District Health and Family Welfare Officer Sadashiv Munyal to identify the woman and provide her with necessary care.
The Hindu and other newspapers reported from Aurangabad that the woman had delivered a girl while she had come to Belagavi to work in sugarcane fields. Her child died soon after birth. Marathi newspapers carried the news on Wednesday. The woman, a farm labourer from Maharashtra, had come to Belagavi with her family to cut sugarcane a month ago. She hails from Beed district.
Five died
They identified her as Walki or Lanka Bai, a member of the nomadic Gabali community. Five of her children have died. She has two male children and nine daughters now. She is also said to have had three abortions in the past.
We are getting in touch with Maharashtra health officials who have kept track of her earlier deliveries. We will soon identify the family, a department officer said.
