Amid preparations for the Lok Sabha election, personnel from the Department of Health and Family Welfare and the Department of Women and Child Development are now busy in completing the family health survey taken up in Dakshina Kannada since last month.

The State government has asked the departments to complete it by April 5.

District Health and Family Welfare Officer M. Ramakrishna Rao told The Hindu that the purpose of doing the joint survey is to maintain a common data on the family health, malnutrition and other health issues. “We both have data with us. With a joint survey this data is being fine tuned,” he said.

In each taluk, 50% of the blocks has been assigned to Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) attached to the Health Department, while anganwadi workers have been asked to conduct the survey in the remaining half.

A department official said since anganwadi teachers have refused to take up the survey work, the department has taken the services of private nursing college students for the survey.

“We request people to cooperate with the personnel for the survey work,” Dr. Rao said.

Vishalakshi, president of Dakshina Kannada Anganwadi Karyakarteyara Sangha, said anganwadi teachers have refused to take up the survey work as they have been involved in election work. “All of us are booth-level officers. With great difficulty we are managing handling children (in anganwadis) and the election work. Hence we refused to take up the burden of survey work,” she added.