Thiruvananthapuram: The commission for the protection of child rights has found that the site of the Chengara land struggle needed at least two anganvadis considering the number of children under the age of six living there.
Commission members advocate J. Sandhya and Gorgy George in a report submitted after visiting the site following a petition filed by Mr V.B. Ajaykumar of city-based organisation RIGHTS recommended the setting up of mobile anganvadis in case there was a technical problem in establishing regular angavadis there.
Over 72 children up to the age of six living at the Chengara land agitation site are deprived of Anganvadi facilities. Another recommendation of the commission was to ensure that a mobile medical team visit the area at least twice a month as it was found that there were a large number of differentially abled children and children with malnutrition and other ailments in Chengara.
A Supreme Court verdict of 2004 had specifically wanted anganvadis established in areas with sizeable population, especially in scheduled caste habitats.
As most children in Chengara had to travel five to 15 km to reach schools, steps should be taken to ensure that there are adequate schools for students above class VIII as per the provisions of the Right to Education Act (RTE), the commission recommended.
The RTE had made it clear that there should be a primary school within a radius of one km and upper primary school in three-km and high school in five- km areas.
