DAILEKH: Health Minister Umakanta Chaudhari today inspected three diarrhoea affected VDCs of Dailekh district. Taking stock of the situation in the three VDCs-- Bhairikalikathum, Badlamji and Paduka-- the minister assured to provide relief and compensation to the victims' families.

He said that the government would provide Rs 10,000 to families of the deceased and additional 5,000 if the heads of the families had died due to the disease. He also said that the government would provide free education to orphaned children.

Addressing a programme organised in the district headquarters, Minister Chaudhari accused that the disease had turned into an epidemic due to the negligence of the previous government. He urged different organisations and political parties to deploy their members as volunteers in the affected areas. "Our main priority should be to control the disease at the earliest," said Chaudhari. He added that the team accompanying him had brought added supply of medicines.

Meanwhile, chief of the District Public Health Organisation, Dr Gunraj Awasti, informed that they had started health facilities round the clock in all the seventy health centres of the district. He also claimed that all the health posts had now been stacked with sufficient amount of medicines. He informed that 15,000 people of the 28 VDCs of the district have been affected with the disease till now.

Meanwhile, political leaders of the district submitted a memorandum to minister Chaudhari demanding to declare the district as a diarrhoea-hit zone. They have urged the government to provide food and medicines to the people of the affected areas. They also demanded the government to provide three lakh rupees to the kin of the deceased as compensation. Twenty-two persons have lost their lives in Dailekh district till now.

District Education Office has shut all the schools in the district after the disease took the form of an epidemic. Issuing a notice, the DEO informed that the schools would remain shut till August 21.