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Updated: Jul 09, 2019 09:36 IST

After reports of Padma Shri awardee Daitari Naik’s poverty, the Odisha government has decided to give monthly assistance of Rs 10,000 to him and other such financially weak winners.

The state government said in a press release on Monday that of the 83 Padma Shri awardees from Odisha, 45 are alive and some of whom are struggling to make ends meet with their meagre income.

Officials of the state’s culture department said a list of such awardees is being compiled for a grant of monthly assistance following a directive from chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

Last month, the Hindustan Times had reported about the plight of Naik, a 75-year-old tribal farmer from Talabaitarani village in Banspal block of mineral-rich Keonjhar district.

Also read | ‘Eating ant eggs for survival,’ says jobless farmer and Padma Shri awardee

Naik was awarded the Padma Shri early this year after he dug a canal through the Gonasika mountains with a hoe and a crowbar. The canal, which Naik dug between 2010 and 2013, now irrigates 100 acres of land in his area.

He said while speaking to HT that he was not getting any work as a daily labourer after getting the Padma Shri as people were wary of engaging a national awardee in their fields and households.

“The award did no good to me,” he had said.

Apart from Naik, tribal woman Kamala Pujari from Koraput and tea seller D Prakash Rao of Cuttack city were awarded the Padma Shri award last year.

While Pujari received India’s fourth highest civilian award for her work in preserving traditional paddy seeds, Rao got it for running a school in his locality with the income from his modest tea shop.