Bhubaneswar: The National Human Rights Commission has directed the state government to pay Rs 14 lakh to 56 women who were sterilised during a camp using an unscientific method in Angul district.

The commission also expressed concern over the use of bicycle pumps during the sterilisation surgery.

The rights panel, taking cognizance of a petition moved by Supreme Court lawyer Radhakant Tripathy, directed the chief secretary to pay Rs 25,000 as compensation to each of the 56 women who were sterilised in this method.

The rights penal has fixed June 11 for the next hearing in the matter, said the petitioner.

The doctors in a sterilisation camp at Baanrapala in Angul in November 2014, had used bicycle pumps to inflate the abdomen of the women, while conducting laparoscopic tubectomy.

The doctors had to resort to this method as they were not equipped with the required medical equipment. Insufflators are used in laparoscopic surgeries to pump carbon dioxide into the abdomen of women to regulate gas pressure during the procedure.

"Since insufflators are not readily available, bicycle pumps are used as substitute. Rural women are being discriminated against compared to their urban counterparts in sterilisation drive," Tripathy said.

"The crude method not only causes pain, but also poses risk to their lives and amounts to serious violation of human rights. Therefore, the abnormal act of using bicycle pumps to inflate the abdomen of these 56 hapless women endangered their lives and violated their human rights," he said.