Health

• Financial assistance is given to 116 Sickle Cell Anaemia patients. An amount of Rs. 44.54 lakhs has been allotted for this purpose during 2017-18 as of now.
• Under Janani Janmaraksha Project, financial assistance of Rs. 1000/- per month is given to pregnant ladies and new born infants. An amount of Rs. 93.34 lakhs has been allotted to 1027 beneficiaries during this financial year as of now.
• For the functioning of Community Kitchen an amount of Rs. 7.50 crores has been given to Kudumbashree. The share of Social Justice Department is 3.00 crores for this project.
• Under Comprehensive Health Care Project, an amount of Rs. 74.96 lakh has been allotted to project officer Attappady during 2017-18 and 1.25 crore for Kottathara Tribal Hospital.
• Social justice Department is giving nutritious food to pregnant women and children. Milk and egg is distributed to Pre School students. ‘SABALA” kits are distributed to adolescent girls.
• Activities of Health Department are done through Government Tribal Speciality Hospital , Kottathara

 The scheme is intended for providing food grains in needy tribal areas of all the Districts in the State and to address the issue of malnutrition and poverty among the STs. Choice of food items will be decided according to area specific tastes and preferences of the tribes and this will be decided at P O / TDO level. Special priority should be given to women headed families and unwed mothers. During 2016-17, 11000 families were food grains expending an amount of Rs.1.80 crore.  During 2017-18, 12111 families were expending an amount of Rs.1.22 crore.

The Project “Millet Village” is intended for rejuvenating the traditional tribal agriculture in selected hamlets in Attapady.  It will be implemented jointly by Agriculture Department and Scheduled Tribes Development Department.  Administrative sanction has been issued for Rs. 6.87 crore, out of  which, Rs.4.87 crore is the share of  ST Department and Rs. 2.00 crore is the share of Agricultural Department. The scheme is progressing.

Attapady is having 745 sq. km of geographical area with almost 15000 Ha of cultivation spread in Agali, Sholayar and Pudur Panchayats.  The Project area comprises of the whole Attapady, since the hamlets are staggered in all the three panchayats.  There are 192 hamlets of Irula, Muduga and Kurumba tribes.  Apart from production of Millets, Pulses, Oilseeds, Vegetables and Apiculture, it is proposed to start Procurement, Processing, Packing, Labelling and Marketing of value added finished products of millets.  Hence it is proposed to implement “Millet Village” for 3 years from 2017-18 to 2019-20.

The infant mortality rate of the tribal community can be reduced by the consumption of their traditional food.  This will enable them to have a good healthy living for the tribes in general and for the pregnant women and new born in particular.  The Project will also ensure them a better standard of living.  As part of marketing, a quality branded organic product for sales in the name of ‘Attapady Organic’, there is scope in marketing through various outlets.  Ultimately, a socio-economic development of hamlets can be attained by the implementation of this Project.

Financial outlay

Tribal health and nutrition used to be a major issue in Attappady leading to death of tribal infants in considerable numbers in the past. In order to mitigate this issue, several concerted efforts have been taken by the Government. Government Tribal Specialty Hospital at kottathara in Attappady has been developed as a nodal agency for screening women, adolescents and children for health related issues and addressing the same. Three Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres (NRCs) are being operated under this hospital for taking care of anomalies during pregnancy and after delivery also. Apart from this, all the 192 settlements in Attappady are catered to through 172 Community Kitchens. These efforts are in addition to various services provided by the Health Department, Social Justice Department and Local Self Government Department. All these have led to significant reduction in infant deaths in Attappady. While the numbers of infant deaths were about 31 in 2013, it has been brought down to merely 12 in 2017. In fact, the recent deaths were not due to malnutrition but due to congenital anomalies. In Attappady there are two allopathic OP clinics . Financial assistance is given to all tribal patients  , pregnant ladies , newborn infants. Special assistance is given to Sickle cell anaemia patients.

It is true that Attappady is replete with traditional medicinal practitioners. The tribal research institute in Kerala namely The Kerala Institute for Research, Trainig and Development Studies of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (KIRTADS) has carried out substantial work in inventorying the tribal medicinal practitioners and their practices.

In order to support the agricultural practices of tribals in Attappady, several schemes have been implemented by Scheduled Tribes Development Department with the help of Agriculture Department, Kudumbasree & National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) . Special focus has been given to encourage their traditional agricultural practices and cultivation of ethnic food crops especially millet. Even recently Agriculture Department has initiated a major programme for achieving the above objective and the ground work has already started. The key components of these initiatives have always been protection of traditional farming keeping their agricultural biodiversity in mind.