Watch |Dalit-majority village’s five-year long fight with deadly Flurosis

Around 220 km north of Jharkhand capital Ranchi, in this village comprising dalits- lower caste downtrodden people- death lurks on every family. There are at least 37 more such patients, who are counting their last days as relief and rehabilitation is out of sight for them.In the last five years, Pratappur's two tolas—Gatiyahi and Harijan-have lost 60 people to fluorosis. Of them at least seven have died in the last one and half months.The government here, it seems, is only left to count bodies. No major effort is seen to rescue and rehabilitate the remaining people. A board by the government's water and sanitation department standing at the entrance of Harijan Tola suggests people not to consume water from tube wells affected by fluoride. But the paradox is the entire area has been declared fluorosis endemic due to high fluoride concentration in ground water.And bore wells laced with Flouride are the only source of water for them. An ambitious effort to reach piped drinking water to this village from a nearby river lies in limbo for the last three decades.