Nagaur : Nagaur Women in Nagaur are not untouched by HIV infection. Their number is almost equal to that of men. Sunday was AIDS Day but no program was organized regarding it at the government level. The situation is like sprinkling salt on the ground that except the Palanhar scheme, most of the HIV infected people are not getting any benefit. In order not to be identified by the stigma of HIV infection, many infected people are themselves giving up government benefits. According to sources, if we talk about HIV infected people registered in Nagaur ART Centre, then 1675 are registered. Of these, 777 are male patients and 768 are female patients. It is not that children are not infected, among them 81 are boys and 49 are girls. Apart from this, HIV infected people of Nagaur are registered not only in Kuchaman/Didwana Link Center but also in other districts, their number is said to be more than five thousand. This number of people have died in about twelve-thirteen years. When there was an uproar about HIV infection, the number of men was very high, whereas now in Nagaur district this figure has come to an equal level.
Sources say that the state government has been running many social welfare schemes for a long time for the people living with HIV infection, so that they can live better. Despite this, the situation is still not good, they are not getting the benefits of most of the schemes, while some are not coming forward for fear of their identity being exposed. Pension scheme was started for them some time ago, now it has become difficult. Everything was fine till the time of getting offline pension, as soon as the conditions were set by making it online, it has almost stopped. According to an estimate, even fifty percent are not getting pension.
Even away from food security scheme…
Raju Parashar and Kuldeep Chotia of the NGO working for HIV infected people said that they are not even getting the benefit of the food security scheme. Since 2014, the benefits of Antyodaya Anna Yojana/Food Security Scheme are not available even after applying several times. Even after online and off-line process, HIV infected people have been almost eliminated from it. There is also a reason that HIV infected people sometimes have to reveal their privacy to take advantage of it.
