Noting that India is among the worst countries in the world in child nutrition, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor today charged the government with not being serious about welfare schemes like ICDS as he laid stress on efforts to address the issue of health and nourishment of girl child.
"Our government is, at present, not particularly interested in welfare schemes and measures and on giving money for programmes like children health. We have to strengthen ICDS and the government should give more funds to it," Tharoor said at a session in Jaipur Literature Festival here.
He said that the Centre has cut budget even for Anganwadi workers, which is unfair.
"The ministry dose not have adequate money for Aangawadi workers. The government should focus on this issue and that means cutting across the agencies. If we leave this issue to the marginalised Ministry of Women and Child Development, this will not happen," he said.
Noting that India is among the worst countries in the world despite the fact that nutrition standards have increased since Independence, he said that the country has no policy to address nutritional means.
"We have not been giving proper thought to agriculture policy. We do not have a policy which looks at the nutritional means of the country," he said, while suggesting that nutritious food should be supplied through PDS.
Child rights activist Nandana Sen highlighted the unfair treatment a girl child receives, and stressed on addressing the issue of their education as well.
"Girl child face unfair kind of treatment when it comes to food, nutrition and health care. When a boy gets sick, he is quickly rushed to the hospital but the same access is not given to girls," she said.
Sen said, besides malnutrition, the issue of education must also be addressed.
"We still have not learned to prioritise education for girl child. We need to not only connect them to school, but also on ensuring that they do not drop out, they attend regularly and for this, we need to improve our infrastructure including toilets in schools," she said.
The activist also suggested that the role of adolescent girls should be recognised and they should be encouraged to work as a partners in the programmes.
Writer and journalist Madhu Trehan said that education, malnutrition are interlinked issues that need to be addressed together.
"Girls who suffer choicelessness, human traffickers take their advantage and push them to prostitution. We have a grim situation at hands," she said, adding that programmes to deal with such issues are underfunded and the government should focus on this.
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