Even as kids die, 12 out of 13 child development project officers' posts vacant in Palghar
Even as nearly 500 tribal kids lose their life every year in Palghar district due to hunger and malnutrition, child development project officers (CDPOs) are missing from the scene.
A whopping 12 out of 13 sanctioned posts are vacant in the district leaving the centrally-funded Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) almost headless in the area where it was needed the most.
This callousness is despite the fact that 126 kids have died in the district due to severe malnutrition between April and July this year, as per ICDS own statistics. The women and child development department of Maharashtra has not yet shown any urgency for filling up the posts.
The district is divided in 13 child development project areas. "Mr. Gokhale is the only CDPO in the entire district who is in-charge of Dahanu project," admits Rajendra Patil, ICDS chief of Palghar.
In fact, the situation has gone from bad to worse in last couple of months as the department is left with only four out of 13 CDPOs to serve Palghar. "Two CDPOs have got promoted to class 1 officers and now posted out of distrct. One, who was on deputation from Mantralay, has now gone back to his post, thus Gokhale is the lone CDPO," sources said.
Sources also claimed that several posts of Anganwadi supervisors are also vacant. However, WCD officials claim that the department is restructuring their workloads and postings would be done very soon.
The Integrated child development services program aims at providing services to pre-school children in an integrated manner so as to ensure proper growth and development of children in rural, tribal and slum areas.
The ICDS is centrally sponsored scheme which is implemented through CDPOs who in collaboration with Anganwadis rollout various health and nutrition schemes for kids below six years of age.
Further explaining the function of ICDSs and CDPOs, the website lists out-to raise the Health and Nutritional level of poor children below 6 years of age, create a base for proper mental, physical and social development of children, reduce instances of mortality, malnutrition and school dropouts among children, to provide health and nutritional information and education to mothers of young children to enhance child rearing capabilities of mothers in the state, to provide nutritional food to the mothers of young children and also at the time of pregnancy period.
Incidentally, tribal concentrated Palghar is the newest district of Maharshtra. It was created after carving out India's largest district Thane into nearly two years ago with the prime objective of better development and administration.
The tribal development minister Vishnu Sawara is himself a tribal and represents the Vikramgad constituency which comes in Palghar district. Sawara is also the guardian minister of the district.
Meanwhile, principal secretary of women and child development, Sanjay Kumar avoided calls and messages till the time of going to press and state women and child welfare minister Pankaja Munde was unreachable.
Figure it out
► Population of children 0-6 years: 1.32 crore
► Covered under ICDS scheme: 86 Lakh
► Anganwadis: 88,000
► Child Development projects in Maharashtra: 553
► In Tribal areas: 85
► In rural areas: 364
(Source: WCD department Maharashtra website)
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