The court advised the government to take help of NGOs to reach out to the areas where the government couldn't reach so far.
Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Tuesday directed the state government to file an affidavit giving details of the steps taken by it and the result of the same in connection with malnutrition deaths in Melghat. The court also expressed hope that it would get satisfactory answers by the next date of hearing as the new government would be formed by then.
A division bench of Justice S.C. Dharmadhikari and Justice R.I. Chagla was hearing a bunch of public interest litigations (PILs) highlighting increase in deaths and illness due to malnutrition in 11 tribal areas of Maharashtra especially in Amravati and Melghat region of Vidarbha.
The court observed, “The state has a caretaker arrangement and duly elected MLAs of the largest party and their alliance partner are yet to elect their government. (State) officials in the court could not satisfactorily answer the questions.”
The bench said that the government, for the last five years, had a chief minister (Devendra Fadnavis) who is from Vidarbha region but still the condition of people living there did not improve.
The court directed senior officials from the Central and state child welfare development department to remain present on the next date of hearing on December 5 to inform the court about the quantity of funds spent in the past few years to implement schemes for people living in tribal areas of the state.
It further directed the Union government to file an affidavit on the audit conducted with respect to the budget and expenditure in relation to the schemes to deal with malnutrition.
Earlier this year, the high court was informed that 508 children died between April and December 2018 in Melghat and apart from this there were 153 cases of stillbirths.
The court advised the government to take help of NGOs to reach out to the areas where the government couldn’t reach so far.
Additional government pleader Neha Bhide informed the court that the number of deaths due to malnutrition had reduced in the past few years, to which the bench replied that the government should not think this was something to be
proud of.
“Reducing the figure is not the target. Even one child's death is unfortunate. The target for the government should be zero deaths. Maharashtra is a progressive state,” the court said.
