Food and Civil Supplies Minister Saryu Roy has taken some preemptive strides in the direction of bringing three important wings in the Government together to tackle growing cases of malnutrition, especially among children.
A meeting in his regard was called on Tuesday where hosts of stakeholders and activists working for food security programmes took part and exchanged their ideas.
“There are three Departments under which schemes having potential to reduce malnutrition are being run mainly. These are Social Welfare, School Education and Food and Civil Supplies. Several programmes like anganwadi, midday meal and food security act are being run concurrently. There is an urgent need to make convergence of so many different schemes and we in the meeting interacted how to do that and up to what extent it can be done in the State,” Roy said.
Cases of children deaths keep coming from different parts of the State and the recent in the series is from the Kolhan region. Initial reports suggest that most of the children were affected from malnutrition leading to their premature demise.
“This is worrying to know that deaths in this fashion are taking place despite the Government spending so much money to end malnutrition. It means there are lapses and gaps existing in the system. We need to find a way out of this problem and have to make sure that the food and nutrition benefits reach right up to the actual beneficiaries,” added the Minister.
In the meeting, it was also decided that a workshop would be organised on this and other food related issues on October 16, the World Food Day. “Malnutrition among women and children would be the prime agenda in the workshop along with Right to Food and ensuring its proper supply to the targeted groups,” said Roy.
Chairman of State Food Commission Sudhir Prasad, Unicef chief in Jharkhand Dr Madhulika Jonathan, social activists Balram and Vishnu Rajgadia among others were present in the meeting.