Other States - Orissa   

Ashram in a state of neglect

Sib Kumar Das

Photo: Lingaraj Panda

LOST GLORY: The corridor of the Thakkar Bapa Ashram.

BERHAMPUR: The building may have ruined and the State government may have almost forgotten them, yet the spirit with which Gandhian harijan leader, Padmashri Mohan Nayak, established the Thakkar Bapa Ashram at Nimakhandi on the suburb of the city in 1952 is still alive at the institution. It was built up as a residential vocational school complex for orphans, poor harijan and tribal children. Today 35 orphans, 98 harijan and two tribal children from districts of south Orissa enliven this ashram although Nayak is no more.

Once it had a printing press, an umbrella-manufacturing unit and centre to impart vocational training to children.

But none of them are in functional condition. The plight of the yagna complex where Nayak used to teach small children the intricacies of spiritualism speaks of the penury that the institution is going through.

No help

A committee that includes district officials, including the district collector, manages it. According to Jatin Mishra, the manager of the ashram, government has not provided any funds to take up developmental works at the institution. Recently an estimate worth Rs. 2,72,000 has been sent to the government for repair works but it does not include reconstruction of the boundary wall although plans are on to have a `kanyashram' for 40 girl students at this institution from 2007.

Dues yet to be cleared

It has a school having classes till class V, but the authorities have the desire to include at least two more classes to the school.

The greatest irony is that the State government is yet to clear dues worth over Rs. 4 lakhs towards the stipend of the inhabitants of the institution since long.

The government provides Rs. 500 for each orphan and Rs. 300 for other children, who stay at the ashram.

The ashram has seven employees like its housefather, Padmanabh Behera, who work here for meagre sums but say their only satisfaction is the laughter that they see on the faces of the children who would have otherwise become unwanted by society.

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