Several people protested outside the Delhi Secretariat on Friday demanding immediate action to ensure food security for the residents of city.
The protests come a month after three minor girls — Mansi (8), Shikha (4) and Parul (2) — died in east Delhi’s Mandawali. Their post-mortem reports listed starvation as the cause of deaths.
The protesters alleged that there was a complete lack of action from the Delhi government to take any corrective measures since the incident.
The deaths highlighted the gaps in the food security programmes in Delhi as the family did not possess a ration card. There was no functional anganwadi in the area where the family resided and requisite accountability mechanisms were not in place.
The protesters highlighted a survey carried out by the Delhi Rozi Roti Adhikar Abhiyan (DRRAA) in Mandawali that showed chronic hunger is the reality suffered by most families.
Fifty-six families living in and around the building on Pandit Chowk in Mandawali, where the three victims spent their last few days and families living in Saket Block in Mandawali, where the girls’ family stayed for several years, were covered in the survey.
“Around 41% families reported that they are often unable to afford adequate food for the family. Also, 93% did not have a ration card and 23% families reported that in the last seven days, on at least one day, they had been unable to afford two meals for the family,” said the survey.
