The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) opinion that 66 per cent of children in Gujarat are underweight has triggered a war of words between the Congress and the Narendra Modi-led state government.
A CAG report tabled in the Gujarat Assembly lambasted the working of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) in Gujarat, which is aimed at fighting malnutrition among children, saying that every third child in the state is underweight.
Countering the report, the BJP Government in Gujarat said that in fact the malnutrition percentage had decreased in the state.
It claimed that the percentage of underweight children decreased from 73.04 per cent in March 2007 to 25.09 per cent in March 2013 following several nutrition interventions undertaken by the state government.
The Gujarat government has also claimed that the recent Performance Audit Report of CAG in 2012 had commended the efforts of the Modi regime for the significant decline in malnutrition by about 39 per cent in a span of five years (2007 to 2012).
However, the Congress on Saturday blasted the working of the ICDS in Gujarat and questioned the development model of Narendra Modi.
“Modi model exposed! Every third child in Gujarat is malnourished says CAG. Ahmedabad city, the nearest place to seat of power is worst affected,” party general secretary Shakeel Ahmed commented on the microblogging site Twitter.
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