13-year-old-girl tests freedom from tricycle

Baripada, Aug 19 (UNI) For 13-year-old Kalpana Mukhi, the 61st Independence Day was very special for her as she first tasted the ''real'' freedom in her life.

Polio had left its indelible marks on the Dalit girl. The disease had crippled her and as a result she had to permanently depended upon somebody to carry her to school, located half-a-kilometer from her home.

A student of class VII in the Maharani Prem Kumari Girls' High School at Baripada, this year she got freedom with a gift of a hand paddled tricycle that she can use to go to school daily, she said smilingly.

The tri-cycle was presented to her to mark the occasion of the 61st Independence Day. Similar was the case with as many as 75 other physically challenged school-going children upto age 14. All of them were endowed with ''wheel-power'' to attend their classes independently in various schools of Baripada block, thanks to the Mayurbhanj district administration's on-going marathon drive to identify physically challenged people including school children and provide them with various aids and appliances.

In Baripada alone, some 773 physically challenged children have received their kit which included hearing aids, reading glass, tricycles, blind slates, walking sticks from Steel, Mines, Planning and Co-ordination Minister Padmanava Behera at a special function on the Independence Day.

The District Disability Rehabilitation Centre (DDRC), Mayurbhanj, has provided aids and appliances to as many as 396 physically challenged persons (above the 14 years age group) in the district on the occasion.

UNI