Malnutrition deaths have reduced in Melghat, Bombay High Court asks Maharashtra govt to prepare long term plan
India Today
Maharashtra government has decided to give hot cooked meals to deal with malnutrition from February 1.
The Maharashtra government said that instead of the dry ration that was being given to tribals in Melghat, the state government has decided to give hot cooked meals to deal with malnutrition from February 1. The state used to do this before the pandemic set in 2020.
Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, representing the Maharashtra government, said that the scheme had been closed as the state wanted to stop the spread of Covid 19 with large number of people sitting together and eating. However, he added that the hot meal scheme was started again as they observed that the "male members of the family would eat all the dry ration that was being given with the women and children not getting much."
Activist Bandu Sane, who works in the Melghat region, however, opposed this submission by saying that this was not a tribal culture where men would eat all the food. However, he did add that the hot meal scheme should be implemented not just in Melghat but in all the tribal areas of the state.
Kumbhakoni informed the court that the state has proactively started a Urine Pregnancy Test to detect early pregnancy in tribal women and created software to track the migration of Melghat tribal beneficiaries and review on a monthly basis. The bench at this asked, "How many times do they migrate and why?" Kumbhakoni replied, "They do not have a permanent source of water for irrigation. Agriculture is their main source of income. They stay only in the rainy season. For the rest of the year, as there is no work in Melghat, they migrate and seek work in brick kilns, or sugarcane cutting, returning at the onset of the monsoon." He also pointed out that long-term plans were needed to help prevent this migration and help the tribals lead their lives in their villages.
The division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice MS Karnik was hearing a bunch of PILs on malnutrition among children in the Melghat region, including those filed by Dr Rajendra Burma and Sane, which alleged that not much progress, has been made to alleviate the suffering of the tribal people and that a sufficient number of special doctors including gynaecologists and paediatricians were not provided in the said region.
During the hearing, Justice Karnik asked, "We wanted to know if the malnutrition deaths have decreased since our intervention. Say since November?
Bandu Sane replied, "Yes it has reduced, it has come down from 40 to 25 but it is impossible to reduce it to zero until all the departments of the Maharashtra government come together the child deaths cannot be reduced until the entire state machinery works towards it."
