KEONJHAR: Eighty-year-old Pathuri Dehury began a new chapter Tuesday with a little more dignity and comfort in Odisha’s Keonjhar district — she doesn’t have to crawl to survive in her twilight years.

The district’s administration brought her old-age pension for Sept to her doorstep and also a gift of newfound mobility: a wheelchair. This follows a report in TOI about how she was forced to crawl nearly 2km along a muddy, uneven road to collect her pension for Aug from Raisuan gram panchayat office Saturday.
For years, Dehury relied on her monthly pension of Rs 1,000 as a lifeline.But the effort to collect it had become an ordeal. Telkai BDO GeetaMurmu assured that the pension will now be delivered directly to her home.
Keonjhar collector Vishal Singh said: “The Telkoi BDO was asked to investigate (why Dehury was left to fend for herself). Earlier, the panchayat extension officer had given her pension, and sometimes her family’s other beneficiaries collected the amount.”