Expressing strong resolve to root out malnutrition from Gujarat, Chief Minister Narendra Modi today said that while the Prime Minister does nothing except describing malnutrition as a matter of national shame and keep shedding tears on it, Gujarat has already started taking concrete steps in this regard since 2004 and freed lakhs of poor children and mothers from malnutrition.
“Even in the election year, the state government has given priority to providing nutritious food to the children, without bothering about politics and vote statistics”, he said.
Chief Minister said this in Surat where he launched ‘Doodh Sanjivani’ project today. The project is a novel initiative which has been undertaken by Surat district panchayat with people’s participation, under which more than 40,000 children of 1640 aanganwadis of Surat district will be given milk as a complete nutritious food twice every week. The project involves an annual expense of rupees two crore, in which, Rs.90 lakh has been chipped in by various industrial houses as their social obligation. The project will also cover about 25 primary schools of Olpad and Choryasi talukas which chiefly comprise tribal children.
On the occasion, Chief Minister congratulated the team of Suart district panchayat for coming up with the novel project that will help State in eradicating malnutrition. Chief Minister also handed over order letters for allotting spare land under Land Ceiling Act to the landless tribals.
Speaking about State’s measures for rooting out malnutrition Chief Minister said that State has implemented a systematic and comprehensive programme to fight malnutrition. “Not only the society is being sensitized against malnutrition but even the government officials have also shown their concerns for the issue. Many of these officials have adopted aanganwadis and many of their family members are also associated with it”, he said.
Chief Minister said that past governments in Gujarat never cared to start a single higher secondary school for science stream in the tribal belt from Umargam to Ambaji. How then, a youth from tribal region gets opportunity to be a doctor or engineer. Whereas the present government has started higher secondary schools for science stream in every tribal talukas, he said.
Along with the great industrial development, the area under cultivation has also been increased by 37 lakh hectare. “You can see one or other development work going on in the periphery of every 25 kilometer in Gujarat”, he said. The central government report itself says that Gujarat has given highest employment. How long can you keep people in dark about the obvious growth of Gujarat, he questioned.
Speaking on the occasion Assembly Speaker Ganpat Vasava described the ‘Doodh Sanjivani’ project as an important step for improving health of tribal children of backward classes.
Panchayat Minister Narottam Patel and Forest Minister Mangubhai Patel highlighted various pro-people schemes of the state government and called upon people to contribute in the building of a healthy society.
Former Minister Kanjibhai Patel, Surat MLAs, district panchayat president Ashwinbhai, office bearers of Kamrej taluka panchayat, chairmen and office bearers of various committees, invitees and village people were present on the occasion.
