Government grant comes too late

“Due to her exceptional qualities in the field of academics, culture and sports, the state government decided to help her on sympathetic grounds,” Haryana sports minister Kiran Chaudhary said in a statement. The release also said that the amount had been sanctioned by chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. A few hours later, realising their blunder, the ministry sent a release condoling her death.

A national level junior boxer with several wins to her name, Megha was first diagnosed with the tumor after returning from the national junior championships in April 2007.

For her father, Dinesh, the grant announcement added insult to injury. “I spit on this amount and this announcement, and on this government,” he said, visibly aggrieved. “This is not just an insult. It’s mocking at my daughter’s death,” he added.

“I first wrote to the District Collector (DC) Uma Shankar six months back, but there was no response. I wrote a second letter on July 27, after which I was sanctioned Rs 4000 from the local unit of Red Cross. I have written at least 20 letters to the Chief Minister and his Officer on Special Duty (OSD) on various occasions and they acknowledged them every time. But when I wrote to them on August 28 seeking help for my daughter, they denied receiving any letter,” he alleged, adding that a second letter he wrote a month later was also not acknowledged.

All this while, help from local NGOs were the only support the family had.

“My third letter to the DC was on September 18, on which action was finally taken a month later,” he said. Even after that, Bhardwaj says he was made to run from one doctor to another, all the way to Rohtak, before he realised that the Chief Medical Officer of Sirsa — who refused to entertain his application for an expenditure certificate for treatment — was actually authorised to do so.

“When I questioned him, he misbehaved with me and threw the certificate on my face,” Bhardwaj said. “Now they come up with this announcement three days after her death. What will I do with this money?”

Haryana government officials The Indian Express contacted either refused to comment or were unavailable.