LUCKNOW: Devansh Dixit was just 11 when his father Akhil Dixit, an administrative officer at a private medical college in Bareilly, succumbed to massive cardiac arrest in November 2019.
Devansh’s mother Abha opened a parlour for sustenance and funding her son’s education. However, the misfortune did not end and Abha succumbed to Covid-19 on May 2 in the second wave.
Left without parents, Devansh was brought to Lucknow by his septuagenarian maternal grandfather Rajesh Pandey who lives in Chowk.
“Life has been very cruel to Devansh and I don’t know what will happen to him after me. My two sons living in Gujarat with their families send money from which I’m paying his school fee. We contacted authorities for government aid, but till date nothing has happened,” said Pandey, who is often unwell due to old age.
After learning that government’s women and child welfare is identifying orphans who have lost parents to Covid, Pandey is preparing documents to apply for Union government’s ‘PM-CARES for Children’ scheme under which the child will get a monthly stipend on turning 18 and Rs 10 lakh on reaching the age of 23 besides free education, health insurance and financial support for uniform, books, and notebooks.
Director, women and child welfare, Manoj Rai told TOI, “In UP, we have identified 328 orphans who lost both parents during pandemic. Such orphans are eligible for the central government’s scheme. Our department has started their documentation, so that apart from benefits of state government’s UP Mukhyamantri Bal Vikas Yojana-Covid, the orphans also get Rs 10 lakh aid under central government scheme.”
However, the scheme does not cover orphans who don’t have proof of Covid death claim.
“Life has been cruel on us. We expect the government should consider our claim with mercy. I lost both parents to corona infection within a month. They both died at home, and so I don’t have a death certificate to prove Covid death. Local hospitals refused to admit my mother while she had all symptoms of corona, and my father died way before we could understand anything,” said 17-year-old Madhur Singh Yadav, an intermediate student, of Ganga Kheda village in Malihabad.
The youngest among three siblings, he lost his father Amrit Lal Yadav, a home guard last posted in secretariat, on March 9, while mother Maya Devi succumbed on April 25.
Govt to release Rs 14cr for non-Covid orphans
Taking cognizance of the TOI report published on October 16 about non-Covid orphans waiting for financial help, the state government is likely to release a lump sum of Rs 14 crore within a fortnight. Maximum two orphans from each family would be paid Rs 2,500 per month till they reach the age of 18. There are over 2,500 orphans in the state who don’t have Covid certificates to prove the cause of death of their parents. There are over 50 families that have more than two orphans.
