A Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Ministry of women and child development envisages procurement, supply and management of supplementary nutrition at the Angan Wari centres. Under the scheme, it may be recalled, children of the age of 6 months to 6 years and pregnant women as also lactating mothers are getting benefitted for 300 days in a year are as per the norms of the scheme. Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP) differs in duration between states , however, irrespective of the duration , the quality and the standard of the items purchased must be of proven quality without any deviation in the set norms.
The State High Court, has directed the State Government to have a relook at the purchase and procurement of such nutritional items supplied to the Angan Wari centres in the state. The Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Sanjeev Kumar has passed on directions to this effect as the items are not of standard qualities which are given to children in these centres. A firm which is blacklisted is reported to be supplying these items while a case of food adulteration is pending against the said firm in a court. This has been brought into the notice of the court by a petitioner .The said firm has received payments amounting to Rs.7 crore despite allegedly supplying substandard nutritional items.
It is unbelievable that things can reach to this pass in a health related issue that Food Safety Department mandated to be a member on the monitoring committee is “removed” in order to avoid proper checking of nutrition items supplied to the centres. Moreover the procurement committee has not been given extension after its expiry to presumably facilitate manipulations.
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