Study on ‘Tragedy in Attappady’

Attappady, the only tribal development block in Kerala is a testimony to persisting tragedy in the form of continuous infant deaths. Within a period of ten months in 2014, thirty seven infants died, the cause reported as malnourishment. Soon after this tragedy, government came with a series of programmes under the title ‘Attappady Package’ with twenty seven departments funding an amount of around five hundred crores. Three years after the implementation of the package there are still reports of malnourishment related deaths with the toll reaching seven. Against this background the project examines the tragedy of ‘health at risk’ for Attappady people with focus on the factors that built up the tragedy, extent of the tragedy, the intervention mechanism and its outcome.