TOI : Young MPs take stock of malnutrition-hit villages : Sept 30 ,2007
Young MPs take stock of malnutrition-hit villages
Rukmini Shrinivasan I TNN
Wada (Thane): “Not bad, I could eat this,” said Jay Panda, Biju Janata Dal
MP from Orissa, sampling a spoonful of ‘lapshi’ (porridge). “Does it need
more jaggery?” NCP MP from Maharashtra Supriya Sule asked Sachin Pilot, a
Congress parliamentarian from Rajasthan, as 30 pairs of eyes watched them
with curiosity.
On the second leg of their field visits to study malnutrition, four of
the country’s youngest MPs-BJP parliamentarian from Bihar Shahnawaz Hussain
soon joined them-and members of the Citizens’ Alliance Against Malnutrition
visited three anganwadis in Thane district’s tribal Wada area and found
cause for both concern and hope.
The group will tour badly-hit districts in states governed by the UPA as
well as Opposition parties so as to stay true to their intention of the
programme staying apolitical. “We are not here on a fault-finding mission.
We are here to observe the best practices in each state, identify loopholes
and then make our recommendations to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,” Pilot
said.
Despite the fact that news of the impending visit had long reached the
first two villages, the loopholes were definitely visible. At the anganwadi
in Nandgaon, sevika Kavita Patil had maintained up-to-date records of the
ages and weights of the 87 children in the age group of 0-6 month by month.
But, when paediatrician Samir Dalwai-who was accompanying the group-asked
Patil to bring in a child so that he could verify the figures, the cracks in
the system were exposed.
When Dalwai made two-year-old Hrithik Marle sit in the weighing harness
and suspended it from the hook attached to a scale, it showed he weighed 9.5
kg; while the records maintained he was 11.5 kg. So, was Patil fudging the
figures? It turned out that the floor-scales Patil was using were wrongly
calibrated and she was reminded that, according to norms of the Integrated
Child Development Scheme, she should have been using the hook-scale.
The positives were just as glaring for the MPs. At Dabcheri, anganwadi
sevika Shobha Gadak explained in clear terms to the MPs how she determined
if a child was malnourished, showing them the ages and weights that she had
plotted neatly on a graph. “Anganwadi sevikas get all the flak when
something goes wrong. But they get none of the credit even though they are
the most important links in the chain,” said Sule.
The extent of malnutrition in Wada was significantly lower than that in
Madhya Pradesh, which the team visited earlier. Grade-I and grade-II (mild
and moderate) malnutrition were rampant in the tribal villages, just two
hours from Thane. At Dabcheri, 48 of the 114 children registered with the
anganwadi had Grade-I malnutrition and 43 Grade-II.
All three anganwadis visited had listed only one child as having
Grade-III malnutrition. In all three, the child could not be located.
rukmini.shrinivasan@timesgroup.com
A WEIGHTY ISSUE: The MPs’ visit to anganwadi centres in Thane exposed cracks
in the manner children’s records were maintained
Publication:Times of India Mumbai; Date:Sep 30, 2007; Section:Times City;
Page Number:4