Anganwadi kids’ lives at risk: Goverment yet to clear food bills

Bengaluru: In Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s own Mysuru district, children going to anganwadis and lactating mothers are suffering because the Women and Child Welfare Department has not cleared bills for food items supplied to anganwadis for the last five months.Strangely, the Mahila Supplementary Nutrition Production Centres (MSNPCs), which supply food grains and other items to children and mothers, are functioning better in the neighbouring districts of Mandya, Chamarjanagar and Hassan.

The delay in payment has put the lives of children at risk as they are being supplied with adulterated food, activists warned. For instance, the MSNPC in the suburban Hebbal in Mysuru has pending bills running up to Rs 2 crore. Centre’s project facilitator Franklin told the Deccan Chronicle that it required Rs 30-40 lakh per month to procure and process the food material, but not a single rupee had been paid over the last five months. “We have to plead with the traders to supply the raw material. It is obvious that the trader will supply substandard material if not paid on time. Moreover, the price fixed for items like wheat is far lesser in Mysuru as compared to other districts.”

Over the last four years, MSNPCs in Mysuru are supplying raw materials directly to anganwadis, instead of supplying processed, nutritious food. For example, after procuring wheat, it is mandatory to follow a four-step process using machines. It has to be first put through a pre-cleaner, de-stoner and later roasted before it is powdered with a hammer mill machine. But the process is not being followed and the machines are lying unused, because of the apathy of zilla panchayat, which has directed MSNPCs to supply food materials in raw form.

But after a controversy over food adulteration broke out, ZP President Pushpa Amarnath convened a meeting of MSNPCs and directed them to supply food in powdered form.Mr Franklin said that unless the procurement price of various food items is revised and bills are cleared on a monthly basis, it is difficult to meet the requirements. “We procure wheat and rice from the Food Corporation of India (FCI), which does not give products without payment. We supply 15 products to anganwadis,” he said.Meanwhile, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said that strict action would be taken against traders who supplied adulterated moong dal. “I am not aware of the issue, but the guilty will be punished,” he said.