Bombay High Court expressed concern over 17,000 deaths due to malnutrition in Maharashtra.
Voicing concern over death of 17,000 persons due to malnutrition in tribal areas of Maharashtra in the last one year, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday asked the state government to take immediate steps to tackle it and submit details of central grants received for tribal welfare.
A division bench of Justices VM Kanade and Swapna Joshi was hearing a bunch of PILs regarding malnutrition among children in Melghat region of Vidarbha and other tribal areas in Maharashtra.
One of the petitioners showed the court a reply received through the Right to Information (RTI) Act which said over 17,000 persons, including women and children, had died due to malnutrition in the state in the last one year.
The court was also informed that 283 persons had died in Melghat region during 2015-16 and additional 83 from January 2016 to July 2016.
"This is a very serious matter that so many people have died due to malnutrition in the state. We direct the government to take immediate steps to tackle the menace", said the judges.
The bench also asked the state to improve the working conditions of the doctors in tribal areas.
The Maharashtra government on Wednesday submitted to the High Court a report of the core committee formed to tackle the menace of malnutrition in tribal areas.
The government also informed the high court that it did not have enough gynaecologists, general practitioners and other doctors in tribal areas to improve the health condition of people particularly women and children.
However, it had taken measures to improve the health conditions of the people in tribal areas because of which the number of deaths due to malnutrition had come down, said the government pleader.
The bench sought to know how much grant was received by the state government from the Centre for development of tribal areas and asked the administration to file a reply by October 14 on this issue.