M.B. Rajesh, MP, has sought the urgent intervention of the State government to stop the death of tribal children from malnutrition in Attappady.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy should direct the Ministers to visit the tribal hamlets and take stock of the situation, he said in a statement here on Monday.
“This matter of serious concern will be raised in Parliament because the failure to implement Union and State government programmes to provide nutritious food to children, teenaged girls and pregnant mothers had caused the tragedy,” Mr. Rajesh said.
“Twenty-four tribal children below the age of five, including newborn babies, died in Attappady during the past 15 months. This is due to the total failure of government programmes for maternal and child care in the area.”
He said the child deaths from malnutrition were not an isolated incident. A Comptroller and Auditor General report tabled in the Assembly said 110 children had died from malnutrition during 2012 in Palakkad and two other districts.
The deaths indicated a dangerous trend of reversal of Kerala’s high human development indices, the hallmark of which was a low child mortality rate. He said poor implementation of the Integrated Child Development Services scheme had affected the functioning of anganwadis in the tribal hamlets. They had not been distributing milk, egg and banana for the past one year.
