The District Women and Child Welfare Department has failed to tackle the increasing malnutrition, infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate even after spending huge funds for providing nutritional supplements through Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) in Kalaburagi district.
District organiser of the Samajika Parivarthana Janandolana Vittal Chikkani, addressing presspersons on Tuesday, said that the Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre, established in an attempt to reduce malnutrition, has admitted only 1,937 children in the last five years and referred 23 cases to the higher centre for the treatment.
Despite spending more than Rs. 1.53 crore for providing nutritional supplements in anganwadi centres to pregnant women and children, infant and maternal mortality in the district has not come down.
According to the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) study, as many as 33.3 percent of children under three years are severely or moderately underweight and 42.4 percent of them suffer from moderate to severe stunting in the State.
About 83.9 percent of the children below three years suffer from low haemoglobin level, he added.
Wrong report
Samaj Parivartana Janandolana Zilla Samiti convener L. Manjunath has alleged that the officers in the Women and Child Welfare Department have submitted a wrong report to the government saying there are only 700 malnourished children in Davangere district.
He told presspersons here on Tuesday that the samiti had conducted a survey of 3,000 families in over 20 villages in Harapanhalli taluk and found that there were more than 1,600 malnourished children.
“More than 18 children died in the district between May 2013 and June 2014, a majority of them owing to malnutrition.
The rehabilitation centres in Harapanhalli and Chennagiri have stopped functioning for the last eight months and the authorities have not taken any steps,” Mr. Manjunath alleged.
The workers in these rehabilitation centres had left their jobs as they were not paid their salaries properly, he added.
