HC tells state to check if facilities reach tribal areas

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has expressed displeasure at the steps taken by the government to reduce malnutrition-related deaths in the state.

The court, while hearing a bunch of petitions pertaining to malnutrition deaths, said that the state had money, equipment and qualified doctors but needed to see whether these facilities were rea-ching tribal areas or not.

The court told the chief secretary of the state to examine what was going on at the ground level.

A division bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice N.M. Jamdar, while hearing the petitions, asked whether the state government would like if children died due to malnutrition.

“It needs to study with the help of the Tata Ins-titute of Social Sciences why children are dying due to malnutrition desp-ite having facilities. What are the social reasons behind it? Why the benefits of the government’s policies are not reaching the tribal people?” the bench said.

Bandu Sane, one of the petitioners, informed the court that from April 2018 to December 2018, 508 children had died due to malnutrition in the Melghat region. He argued that there were many projects and policies for upliftment but nothing reached them.

Poornima Upadhya, ano-ther petitioner, argued th-at the state had no mechanism to check whether meals and medical facilities were provided to tribal children or not.

The petitioner also said that many NGOs and doctors were ready serve vol tribal areas and the state needed to send some delegations of officers.