Secretary, State disaster management department Amitabh Kaushal in response to a query said there is an ex gratia relief for families which suffer death of any of its members on account of the snake bite.
Kaushal said it is four lakhs of rupees. However he said the most essential ingredient of this ex gratia relief is the post mortem report. A person who dies of the snake bite needs to be post mortemed for this relief as without post mortem report this fiscal relief to the bereaved family will not be any coming to it.
Reminded that not many people know about this monetary compensation in the event of death caused by snake bite to which the secretary state disaster management authority Amitabh Kaushal said people know it and the media should further disseminate this message to all.
Only this week a 24 year old young man Chandan Kumar Soni died of snake bite under the Chainpur block and his family just cremated him without the post mortem. The Soni family just did not know about the essentiality of the post mortem.
Chandan was bitten by a Krait snake which was beneath the pillow in the bed on which Chandan had slept at night! The karait was killed by the family.
Civil surgeon Palamu Dr John F Kennedy said as per reports available with the MMCH Daltonganj so far 4 people have died of the snake bite in Palamu this year. Kennedy said last year the number of deaths by snake bite was just two.
The civil surgeon urged people to be extra cautious while walking down on the grasses or at night.
Kennedy advised people to rush to the MMCH Daltonganj or at any of the community health centres in the district in the event of snake bite and not to waste time in visiting any quack or jhar phoonk wala.
Kennedy said any delay in reaching the victim of snake bite to the hospital may prove fatal. He recalled how he saved a snake bite victim with 30 vials of the anti snake venom.
However in the same vein Kennedy said there was another snake bite victim who despite 27 vials of anti snake venom injection succumbed to the snake bite. Kennedy agreed krait snake is the major risk here in Palamu.