Last month, the appalling news of two children losing their lives due to starvation came to light. Two-year-old Vennela passed away on April 28, while her three-year-old cousin Santhosh died about 6 months before that. Both the children had reportedly eaten mud out of hunger, which led to their deaths.
Kadiri Revenue Divisional Officer T Ajaya Kumar had conducted an inquiry into the incident. The inquiry report held Santhosh’s parents Nagaveni and Mahesh responsible for the deaths, claiming that it was a case of ‘child abuse and cruelty against children’. The report also listed the remedial measures to be taken by officials to support the surviving members of the family.
But according to members of a fact-finding team from the Human Rights Forum (HRF), the deaths of the children were the result of lack of proper monitoring of welfare schemes in the district.
Blame on impoverished family
On May 11, the fact-finding team visited the Hamali Quarters area of Kummaravandlapalle village in Kadiri, where the family had been living. They also visited the Government General Hospital in Anantapur, where Nagaveni and Mahesh were staying as their one-year-old child Lavanya was being treated at the Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre (NRC).
The family had migrated to Kadiri from Chikballapur in Karnataka a few years ago in search of livelihood. According to the HRF report, Mahesh, who does stone-cutting and earth-digging work, was not able to find employment regularly. He would earn around Rs 1,000 a week. Since the places of work were far from their home, he would visit his family once in two or three days to hand over Rs 200 to 300, before leaving for work again.
Shrugging responsibility for the children’s deaths, the inquiry report by the RDO claims that government officials had done their part but it was the parents’ negligence and the mother’s alcohol addiction that caused the deaths.
Failure to provide ration card
According to HRF’s Anantapur District Secretary BN Subbanna, Nagaveni and Mahesh have said that they had applied for a ration card twice, but did not receive any response. “We spoke to the concerned official. At first, he said that the couple did not have Aadhaar cards, therefore ration cards could not be issued. But the statement signed by the Revenue Inspector of the Anganwadi centre has the Aadhaar numbers of Nagaveni, Mahesh and two of their children,” said Subbanna.
Subbanna said the official then told the fact-finding team that the couple’s names were not listed in the Praja Sadhikara Survey, based on which they could have obtained a ration card. According to its website, the Praja Sadhikara Survey builds a database of household-level socioeconomic data collected by field surveyors who are expected to enter the data into a tablet device connected to the internet. Subbanna believes that not everyone in the village knew about this since there wasn’t enough publicity or awareness regarding the survey. “The surveyors had visited the area for data collection only once. They might have missed a few people. It’s the officials’ responsibility to ensure that every household is covered by the survey. They can’t expect people to go and ask to be included in it, when they may not even be aware of it,” said Subbanna.
Poor implementation of ICDS services
Although the children were enrolled in the Anganwadi centre located about 300 metres from where the family lived, according to Subbanna the neighbours reported that the children were often seen wandering around the neighbourhood, sometimes eating food offered by the neighbours. “The children were visibly malnourished. The Anganwadi workers should’ve ensured that the children were regularly fed. Besides, they only provide food in the afternoons. Officials should’ve taken steps to provide additional nutrition to children who are not being fed the rest of the time,” said Subbanna.
According to the fact-finding team, the names of Nagaveni and Mahesh’s five children had been listed in the Anganwadi records, but Vennela’s name was missing. Vennela, Nagaveni’s sister’s daughter, had been left with Nagaveni’s family as her mother was unable to take care of her. “They said that since Vennela’s parents were not here, her name could not be registered,” Subbanna said.
After Vennela’s death, a medical check-up had reportedly shown Nagamani and her one-year-old daughter Lavanya to be anaemic, with the child being sent to the NRC for treatment. According to a report in Deccan Chronicle from May 22, a health survey conducted by the women development and child welfare department in all municipal areas in Andhra identified “as many as 55,000 beneficiaries (of Anganwadi centres) showing symptoms of anaemia and malnutrition”, prompting the state government to provide supplementary nutrition at Anganwadi centres and to set up Nagara Poshana Kendras in urban areas. The report said that the programme is yet to be implemented in rural areas.
Availability of cheap, illicit liquor
Subbanna says that the mother and grandmother were addicted to cheap illicit liquor, which was easily available at the nearby Ballappagari Thanda. “Neighbours told us that the women consumed hooch. They told us they have even seen some of the children bringing liquor for the women occasionally. How can the excise department officials allow such a business to operate so openly that even children can easily go and buy it?” asked Subbanna.
When asked about the illicit liquor brewing, Kadiri Rural CI said that the police were aware of it and had even registered cases against three individuals involved in the business, prior to Vennela’s death. He said that the police are working on taking necessary action against those involved.
The HRF report also states that there have been no efforts made towards de-addiction in the area, in spite of the authorities being aware of the availability of illicit liquor. “When we asked the excise officials, they said they couldn’t do it because funds for de-addiction hadn’t been released,” Subbanna said. The Kadiri Rural CI said that awareness programmes around addiction are conducted in the area once in a while, but de-addiction facilities are available only in Anantapur.
The RDO had earlier said that after being treated for anaemia, the mother would be sent for de-addiction treatment. Three children, other than the one-year-old, were sent to a shelter home in Anantapur.
D Neelaveni, Child Development Project Officer for Kadiri West, confirmed that the three older children continue to stay in a children’s welfare home in Anantapur. “The one-year-old child is still undergoing treatment at the NRC. The parents are also with her at the hospital. The father Mahesh has been given a job at a cool drink manufacturing unit in Anantapur. The child and mother will need some more time to recover. After that, we are planning to refer the mother and grandmother to a de-addiction centre,” Neelaveni said.