State directed to improve facilities in children’s home

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has directed the state to immediately implement the recommendations of a three-member committee that had visited the mentally-disabled children’s home at Man-khurd. The recommendations included the provision of various amenities and ramping up of the existing facilities.

It also recommended the removal of encroachments on the 55-acre government campus, to ensure that the structures of various homes, including the mentally-disabled children’s home, located there were repaired or demolished and new buildings were made in its place for the safety of the inmates.

The state assured the bench that it was in the process of doing the needful and had formed a committee under the Social welfare department that would regularly visit the homes and ensure proper implementation of the recommendations.

A division bench of justices Naresh Patil and G.S. Kulkarni while hearing a PIL filed by an activist Sangeeta Punmiya praying for directions against officials of the home for misusing it and putting the well-being of inmates at stake.

On its part the state submitted the report of a committee that had been constituted following court directions. Government pleader while submitting the report informed the court that all aspects had been addressed by the committee.