Extend Iskcon's Akshaya Patra

[suchandra 1]

Madhu Pandit prabhu's successful Akshaya Patra in Bangalore badly needed in Maharashtra. http://www.akshayapatra.org/board.html

Starved tribal kids and well-fed Marine Drive

 

Thursday, April 20, 2006 10:25:36 IST

 

If the city had its own government, as all large cities have in developed countries, the state government could concentrate where its attention is really needed. Inaugurating a scheme to improve Marine Drive should not be the business of a Chief Minister.

When I am in Mumbai I stay on Marine Drive and happened to be there last Monday when the Chief Minister and other dignitaries gathered to launch the Rs 130 crore scheme that will hopefully turn this city's most famous road into the magnificent promenade it once was. There were speeches and promises and fireworks from a nearby wedding and, most importantly, acknowledgement from the Chief Minister that the city had been unfairly treated. "Mumbai has been giving huge amounts to the Centre in the form of taxes and excise, Rs 40,000 crores annually, and also absorbing people from different parts of India. Now it needs something back'.

As an itinerant resident of Marine Drive I am delighted at this change of attitude — Mumbai has long been the Maharashtra government's milch cow — and would be even more delighted if this comment was made by an elected Mayor of the city. Until our cities are governed by their own elected governments they cannot improve because state governments have far too many serious responsibilities already on the plate.

Starvation deaths and glittering events

An example? Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, should have been touring those districts of Maharashtra where children are dying of starvation instead of at a glittering event in Mumbai. One of the districts, Thane, is no more than a couple of hours' drive from Marine Drive and

Mr. Deshmukh should accept moral esponsibility and resign because it is beyond horror that children should be dying of hunger so close to Mumbai.

Maharashtra has an appalling record when it comes to starvation deaths. Not one member of Mr. Deshmukh's government has ever stood up and admitted responsibility despite more than 9,000 recorded 'malnutrition' deaths in the past couple of years. The deaths would be totally preventable if the government had one anti-poverty programme that really worked.

Thousands of crore rupees of taxpayers' money is being spent on grandiose schemes that seek to 'alleviate' poverty but that in real terms only 'alleviate' the poverty of the officials who run them. The problem is not of corruption, though that exists, the problem lies in the inability of Maharashtra's rulers to see that their poverty alleviation schemes are not working. The schemes are too elaborate, too unwieldy to address the problem and every time starvation deaths happen, the Maharashtra government shelters behind the excuse that the problem is 'malnutrition' brought on by ignorance and bad social practices among the Adivasi community.

When questioned about the dying children the officials of the Maharashtra government speak of social practices like child marriage. What can we do, they say, if Adivasi girls are married off in the early teens and have an average of five babies by the time they are in their early twenties. As a matter of fact the state government should be doing a great deal more than it does right now.

If the state government was serious about preventing starvation deaths in children then the first thing that it would do is bring in district level NGOs to handle its child welfare and feeding programmes. Officials, particularly at the village level, are so used to desperate poverty that their compassion gene is dead. If it cannot come alive when they see small babies dying slowly and painfully of hunger, they cannot have compassion. If the Maharashtra government were serious it would take the help of an organisation like Akshaya Patra to set up local feeding programmes in districts that are especially poor, backward and vulnerable.

Akshaya Patra is a remarkable midday meal scheme devised by the ISKCON temple in Bangalore with support from Infosys. It only needs to extend its afternoon meal to include pre-school children in districts like Nandurbar and Thane which every year report the largest number of deaths. One decent meal a day is all it will take to save the lives of Adivasi children who usually grow up eating a small bowl full of watery dhal and rice as their only meal of the day. It happens that last Monday I saw a small convoy of Akshaya Patra delivery vans parked outside the Taj Hotel in Mumbai so they are already working in this state. Why are they not being allowed to take charge of districts affected by starvation?

The Marine Drive story

Which brings us back to Mumbai and Marine Drive. If the city had its own government, as all large cities have in developed countries, then the state government could concentrate where its attention is really needed. Inaugurating a scheme to improve Marine Drive should not be the business of a Chief Minister. States in which big cities and towns exist cling to them because of the amount of money they generate by way of taxes and excise duties but it is time that they allowed metropolises like Mumbai and Delhi to keep thirty per cent of the money they generate so as to prevent the hideous, urban poverty you see in the slums of Mumbai. Had there been an efficient city government there may not have been sl ms at all because a city government would have ensured the availability of low cost housing.

As things are neither city nor village gets the governance it deserves and we are forced the terrible shame of babies dying of starvation on the edge of a city whose streets are believed to be paved with gold.