BJP-Sena govt comes under attack for malnutrition deaths

Dateline

With child malnutrition deaths shooting up at Palghar district that adjoins Mumbai — the commercial capital of the country — the critical issue has come to the fore yet again and prompted the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance government in Maharashtra to swing into action.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his ministers have come under sharp attack from Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil (Congress) and his counterpart in the Council Dhananjay Munde (NCP). Both of them had extensively toured the Palghar district and had put the deaths in last one year at a massive 600-plus. “The government has made a mess of the situation in the last two years,” said Vikhe-Patil.

“The deaths are not caused only by hunger and starvation and the issue has compounded because of multiple causes and lack of coordinated effort from the government....it is a matter of regret that even after 70 years of freedom, starvation deaths are happening...malnutrition is not a disease, the real disease is hunger,” said Vivek Pandit, former MLA and founder of NGOs — Samarthan and Shramjeevi Sangathana — which work with the tribal community in Palghar district’s malnutrition-affected taluks of Mokhada, Jawhar and Vikramgad.

According to Pandit, the Palghar figures are disturbing. In 2013-14, the number of child deaths because of malnutrition was 512, 485 in 2014-15, 457 in 2015-16 and 208 from April to August 2016. As per the government survey, 5,864 children come under moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) and 1,456 children come under severe acute malnutrition (SAM). This means 7,230 children are malnourished in Palghar district.

After Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao took cognizance of the issue, three ministers - Tribal Affairs Minister Vishnu Savara, who is also the Guardian Minister of Palghar district, Women and Child Development Minister Pankaja Munde and Public Health Minister Dr Deepak Sawant visited the affected-taluks to take stock of the situation. Finance and Planning Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar is working with them. Recently, Pandit too met the governor and apprised him of the ground situation.

“We need to make a comprehensive plan that would include long-term as well as short-term measures to tackle malnutrition in the state. The government must reach out to every single child suffering from malnutrition,” the governor told the meeting of ministers and senior government officials.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) too had taken suo motu cognizance of the issue and sought a report from Chief Secretary Swadheen Kashtriya. “Such a huge number of deaths of the children in a year amounts to violation of right to life and health of the poor victims. The excerpts of the news stories reveal that the area having tribal population is the most vulnerable. The tribals, affected by poverty and illiteracy, lack awareness about government welfare and healthcare schemes,” the NHRC said.

“The problem in tribal areas is complex,” said Dr Anita Patil, who works with the tribals in the district. “Here are issues of a proper diet of mothers, who are married young, and the gap between two children is less. There are issues such as patients or parents not consulting the doctors and depending of local godmen. Also, the children are underweight, their BMI (body mass index) is low…the fat content in their food and their iron intake is less...even the intake of non-vegetarian food is low...they do not take kids to hospitals for treatment...diarrhoea is quite common among kids, sanitation is another issue,” she said.

“We are going to make coordinated effort to tackle the situation,” said Dr Sawant even as he admitted to malnutrition deaths, but added that the figures thrown up by Congress and NCP were not correct. “We have decided on a lot of things and what we are looking at is to provide proper nutrition to mothers and kids...we have studied various international examples and guidelines of Unicef and very soon we would come out with a policy paper,” said Pankaja Munde.

The issue made headlines when the governor expressed serious concern over the deaths coupled with the issue of Minister Savara getting into a spat with local villagers. “So what? The government is doing its work, implementing schemes,” he retorted when pointed out that 600 people had died of malnutrition in the past one year. He, however, later denied making any such statement.

Closure of scheme

Pandit points out that it was first in September 2015 that he had apprised the government of the situation. “It was way back in December 2015 when we had a meeting with the chief minister on the child deaths and we had forewarned him that the closure of the Village Child Development Centre (VCDC) will result in the child deaths. He assured us that it would be restarted soon. However, so far, that has not happened,” he said and pointed out that in January 2016, the APJ Abdul Kalam “Amrut” Yojaya was announced but in fact, in many places, it has not started.

“The VCDC was meant for providing supplementary food to children, Amrut Yojana for pregnant and lactating mothers, and in this scheme, children are not included. The programme itself has several flaws and in the present state, the implementation of the same is not practically possible,” according to Pandit. Another issue is that for nearly six months, salary and money spent on nutrition food for children by Anganwadi workers and assistants have not been paid.

“The system of survey of children should also be changed,” he said and also asked for nutrition rehabilitation centre and child treatment centres for SAM and MAM children to be started at the premises of the Public Health Centre (PHC) itself and that funds should be provided. “There is also a shortage of doctors in the region,” Pandit said. “There is an issue, no one denies that...it is a complex problem and we all need to be together in solving the issue...Though there have been deaths, the figures circulated by opposition is not a reality,” said Pascal Dhanare, BJP MLA of Palghar.