Food for Starving Children Sold As Feed for Livestock

Thane district is one of the worst performing districts when malnutrition is considered. There are 6224 severely underweight children from the 4865 anganwadis in the Thane district.

Activists say that this malpractice is not just an issue seen in Thane alone but it is spread across the state. As per Maharashtra government's figures, 1,17,493 children died in the last four years because of the malnutrition in state. Even when Manmohan Singh considers malnutrition as "a national shame", there seems to be no sufficient change in the scenario. Government’s fights are futile when the middlemen, allegedly with the collusion of some government authorities, ensure that the children go hungry.

The sting operation by NDTV revealed that the middleman moves the contents of the government packets in to larger gunny bags and stores separate in order to sell in the fresh market "This comes from the government talukas. The supply that comes to the taluka, we get hold of with a little bit of adjustment. This belongs to the government. You cannot sell it outside,"  a middleman said.

"It is shocking in the sense that at the cost of malnourishment which Maharashtra is facing such things are going on. Let's face it that all these years we talked about being a progressive state; we are also now very high on malnourishment status both in urban, rural and tribal areas. And I think this is something which all of us have to accept including the system; that what is happening is that the children who are malnourished are increasing in number and that needs to be strictly controlled," said Lina Joshi who has studied the Anganwadi system.