A five-member fact finding team of the Right to Food Campaign (RFC), which inquired into the incident of a poor couple in Nimapada selling their baby son for Rs15,000 on May 31 last said in its report that it was abject poverty and food insecurity that drove the couple to commit the crime.
The team found that Sulochana Naik and Trinath Naik, who sold their baby son, are landless. They have BPl card and are receiving 25 kg rice per month. Trinath is also a beneficiary of old age pension and receiving Rs300 per month. However, that is not enough for the family to get two square meals per day. Since they could not feed their children, they chose to sell their child.
Further, the team found that Sulochana’s children were not getting any benefit like Chhatua in the centre under PCDS programme. It also stumbled upon the fact that that her baby’s name was not registered in Anganwadi centre.
The team observed that the food security programme undertaken was found outdated and lost its effectiveness to ensure food security of the poor and vulnerable families. It was sheer negligence and indifferent attitude of the administration to ensure food security to the family, which must stop, the team suggested. It also demanded action against the AWC and CDPO for lapses in registering the name of the new born, which deprived the child of food under ICDS programme.
The team observed that the present form of food security programme was not enough to deal with poverty and hunger. Providing some amount of money or food grain is just like lip service and may not bring any permanent solution, it said, adding that the Government should constitute a high power committee to make an analysis of the relevance of the schemes and requirement for modification in them at the earliest.
Besides, the team suggested that the Government constitute a team in each district to find out the vulnerable families whose condition is extremely miserable and their survival at stake. A detailed action plan should be devised family-wise to ensure food security to the families so that the incidence of such unfortunate incidents will be avoided.