Orissa announces financial, medical aid for Kalpana Das

The Orissa government on Thursday announced that it will provide all medical facilities to the ace mountaineer Kalpana Dash. She is now admitted at the Kalinga Hospital, a private multi-speciality health centre in the capital city of Bhubaneswar.

Kalpana is the first woman from the state to scale Mount Everest (on May 21) but fell ill at the base camp on May 25.

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She was kept in ICU at the Kathmandu Hospital and then brought back to her home town.

Just after the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) announced to bear all the expenses of her treatment, the ruling BJD government in the state on Thursday evening made a surprise declaration of a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh including the hospital expenditure.

After media puffed up the ailing condition of the proud mountaineer and the lack of medical facilities and financial aid, different organisations came at the front. NCP party members met her at her residence at Dhenkanal district and expressed their wish for any kind of assistance.

Chief Secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy on Thursday said that the State is going to bear all expenses of her medical treatment for making the state proud. Earlier, NCP had decided to shift her to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.

Miss Kalpana Dash, an Advocate by profession took up this challenge of conquering the Everest with great courage and valour, strong determination and deep commitment.

Scaling mountain peaks -predominantly a male domain- is considered as one of the toughest task and conquering “The Everest”, the highest peak of the world has always been a great challenge to the indomitable spirit of human endeavour.

The 38-year-old Kalpana Dash had made her earlier attempts in 2004 and 2006 and despite her repeated failures, she did continue her rigorous training and achieved the height in the end.