After the NHRC it was the turn of the Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court to issue notices to the State Government on Wednesday while hearing a PIl alleging that it has poorly failed to provide early childhood care to the children resulting in a staggering number of malnourishment cases.
A division bench of the MPHC comprising Justice PK Jaiswal and Justice Vivek Rusia issued notices to the State Government through the Chief Secretary and departments of health and women and child development on a petition filed by civil rights activist Nandlal Tiwari.The bench gave two weeks to the respondents to file their replies.
Petitioner's counsel Abhinav Dhanodkar said the petition quoted media reports published on malnourishment. The report revealed that the Hoshangabad district topped the list of undernourished districts while the other districts like Ratlam, Barwani and Katni also found place in hall of shame.
The report was published on the basis of annual health survey conducted by the office of the Registrar-General of Census with the Institute of Economic Growth. The petition claimed that the condition of other tribal districts like Jhabua and Dhar is also quite similar to the above mentioned districts and the children belonging to a large tribal population is facing the malnutrition.
The petitioner submitted that the situation of Madhya Pradesh was "extremely alarming" on the global hunger index 2008 and it was comparable to the African countries of Ethiopia and Chad. Global hunger index measures the hunger on the basis of three indicators, namely, child malnutrition, child mortality rates and the number of people who were calorie deficient and Madhya Pradesh depicts worst performance on all the three indicators, the PIl said.
"In some of the villages in Madhya Pradesh 83 per cent of children are suffering from malnutrition and out of these 9 per cent of children are suffering from severe malnutrition," the petition said, adding, "The situation has become more horrible when women and child development department trying to hide the actual situation by producing ambiguous figures."
Dhanodkar said the State Government stood in violation of Articles 45 and 47 of the Constitution that made it the duty of the State to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living and to improve public health and provide for early childhood care and education to children below the age of six years.
The Government has also violated Article 39(f) of the Constitution that provides for giving children opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity, he added.