Bhubaneswar, Sept. 27: The Kalahandi district administration has rushed to offer financial assistance to four women who carried the body of their mother on a cot for cremation when nobody from their village came forward to help.

The incident occurred early last Saturday at Dokriguda village in Golamunda block of Kalahandi district, about 500km from here.

The four women are all aged above 50 and belong to the below poverty line category.

Three of them are widowed and the fourth is a divorcee.

Coming under flak for not rising to the occasion, the district administration met the four women yesterday and handed over Rs 10,000 from the Red Cross funds, Rs 2,000 from Raja Harischandra Sahayata scheme and 50kg of rice.

Their mother, 75-year-old Kanak Satpathy, died from old age-related complexities. Kanak's husband was a Brahmin and use to run the family by performing puja at different households and the local temple.

But after he died 10 years ago, the economic condition of the family collapsed. They were cut off from the rest of the village and lived an abysmal life.

After Kanak died, four daughters started wailing, but this did not move the villagers to come to their rescue.

Later, the four daughters decided to carry the body of their mother on a cot from their home and carry it to the nearby cremation ground. They then cremated the body.

After the incident came to light, the Opposition trained their guns on the government saying that the administrative machinery had collapsed in the state.

Former MP and senior Congress leader Pradeep Majhi said: "The state government machinery has collapsed in the Koraput-Balangir-Kalahandi (KBK) areas. Earlier, Daana Majhi had to shoulder the body of his wife as no hearse was provided to him. In this case, the four daughters did not get help from any quarter, and were forced to carry the body of their mother and cremate it."

Although the state has a policy to provide monetary aid of Rs 2,000 under the Raja Harishchandra scheme, no assistance was provided them to cremate the body at that time.

Even as the district continues to make news, the state government today appointed S.P. Thakur, senior IAS officer, as the chief administrator of the KBK region, of which Kalahandi is a part.