What ails Kalmeshwar?

I first heard it from Yohannan achen. "As we were looking at the number of children applying to Prerana, we realized something was not right" What could explain the unusually high number of mentally challenged children in Kalmeshwar area?

There are 62 students currently in Prerana.All of them belong to the local villages and tribal areas. And there are more children who are not enrolled into Prerana. This naurally raises the question - how come so many children in this area are having mental illness? What ails this region? What's wrong in Kalmeshwar?

students at Prerana

One possible explanation is that since there are different tribes and Adivasis, their marriage within themselves, Gothras, marrying cousins etc could be a cause? Perhaps - but is anyone sure? If so, it should be brought to their attention and the practice stopped. And is this a problem everywhere wherever there is a tribal population? It needs to be studied.

Or is it something to do with the water supply or the environment? Is something wrong with the soil? Not sure. Unless the government or some university takes this up as a research, we will not have the data to support such hypothesis. Hope some professional research is done into this matter.