Patkar holds State govt responsible for malnutrition cases in city

Mumbai, June 22 (UNI) Narmada Bachoan Andolan (NBA) activist Medha Patkar today held the state government responsible for malnutrition cases as a result of its ''anti-poor programmes and policies''.

State policies, she stated that ministers and senior officials in the bureaucracy seldom cross check vital information available to them.

Ms Patkar said there is rising intolerance towards activists and social organisations pursuing social causes. ''And on numerous occasions officials have refused to act on the Right to Information (RTI) Act plea citing some other clauses in the law,'' she said.

She stressed that people who are being uprooted as illegal migrants in cities in reality build, clean and maintain these cities around the country.

''The cases of malnutrition is a result of poverty coupled with unemployment. As a result, mothers are anemic and fail to provide proper nourishment to their children,'' Ms Patkar asserted.

However, she opined that whenever there is an agitation by people demanding basic rights and amenties, policymakers step in with loans and sops dousing the agitation.

She alleged that a majority of Integrated Child Development Program (ICDP) projects, funded by World Bank have failed. The World Bank's trumpeted objectives to decrease incidence of child disease, starvation and death, still remain a paper excercise, she added.

Ms Patkar reminded that using cut-off date of 1995 to deride basic amentities like sanitation to people living in slums violated the spirit of National Slum Development Programme (NSDP) 1996-97 and Slum Areas Act of Maharashtra, 1971.

The critical review of the State government came from Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India report for the year ending March 2005, which said ''that the state government failed to underutilize funds for the upliftment of the poor,'' Ms Patkar added.

UNI GVS KU VD KN2001