No More ‘Ashirbad’ For COVID Orphans In Odisha

Bhubaneswar: The state government will stop giving monthly financial support under the Ashirbad scheme for COVID-19 orphans from September 15. The government cited a drop in COVID cases for the decision.

Notably, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had launched the scheme in June this year. It was meant to provide monetary aid for the education, health and maintenance of children who had lost their parents or main bread earner in the family to the pandemic on or after April 1, 2020.

Under the scheme, the government was to deposit Rs 2,500 every month into the bank account of a family member of such a child till he or she turned 18.

However, after four months of its launch, the government announced discontinuation of the scheme on Monday.

In a letter to district collectors, Director of Integrated Child Development Arvind Agrawal wrote that any children whose parent(s)/primary bread earner or any other person died due to COVID after September 15 would only be covered under the government’s Child Protection Scheme and not under Ashirbad.

“It is observed that COVID-19 has been seeing a declining trend in the state for quite some time,” the letter added, referring to the declining Test Positivity Rate (TPR) and deaths.

According to the government, the TPR in Odisha has gone below one over the past few weeks and the number of recoveries has gone up to over a million. The recovery percentage of Odisha has risen to 98.5%, which is higher than the national average of 97.45%.

As many as 1,773 children lost their parents in Odisha to Covid-19 infections since 1 April 2020, according to a report compiled by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). While 163 kids lost both their parents, 1,610 children lost one of their parents since the outbreak.