Pankaja Munde
More than 396 child deaths were recorded in Palghar district in the past one year, Maharashtra’s Women and Child Development Minister Pankaja Munde informed the Legislative Council on Tuesday. Munde, however, added that malnutrition in the district had come down in the past few months, owing to various interventions made by the government.
In November 2017, a total of 4,564 children from the district were found to have been malnourished. This included 499 severely malnourished children. By the end of January 2018, Munde said, the number of malnourished children dropped to 4,540, and cases of severe malnourishment went down to 434.
Munde also said child deaths could not be attributed to malnourishment alone. She listed premature deliveries, pneumonia, fever and diarrhoea as some of the other reasons for child deaths. Saying that screening for malnourishment cases had been intensified in Palghar, Munde also listed various measures undertaken by the government to curb instances of undernourishment.
The minister was responding to a Calling Attention Motion, moved by Shiv Sena’s Ravindra Phatak, on the issue.