Three members of a common family die one after the other, two of them from COVID-19, in Madakasira
For this common family, who live in the MDO Colony in the city of Madakasira in the district of Anantapur, this is a kind of double blow.
Although the family has been waiting for state government compensation for the 8 hectares of land purchased for the special economic zone near the city for almost a decade, three of its members have died in the past three weeks, two of them due to COVID-19 .
The Strange Character of Fate has left five children in the care of a single woman staring at a definitive financial crisis with no support from any source.
B. Umamaheswar, 38, who works at a gas pump, had turned in his samples for testing on May 14, when the pandemic peaked when he developed symptoms of COVID-19. Before the result of the Rt-PCR test became known, he had succumbed to the virus the next day. The May 19 result had revealed his COVID-19 status.
B. Nagaraju, Umamaheswar’s older brother, had died of a heart attack on May 16, unable to digest his brother’s death.
Another crisis hit the family when Umamaheswar’s wife Varalakshmi, 32, also tested positive for COVID-19 and was admitted to a private hospital in Anantapur on May 31. She did not respond to treatment and took one last breath on June 6th due to blood clots in her brain.
Parimala, a little beautician and wife of Nagaraju, is now shaken to the core. “If something happens to me, nobody will take care of the five children,” fears Ms. Parimala.
While Nagaraju is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter, Umamaheswar leaves behind two sons. The oldest of the five children attended a diploma course, the youngest is 4 years old.
Volatile land compensation
The family’s guava farm has been taken over by the government. For reasons unknown, the government has not yet set the compensation.
Farmers of the 1,600 hectares acquired for SEZ have from time to time sought early compensation, but to no avail.