Collector’s ACs bring relief to shelter kids

BHOPAL: The 100 or so tribal children in a state-run shelter for the malnourished in MP’s Umaria were suffering in the 45°-46°C heat. They had already been burned once. Now their wounds — inflicted with hot irons by members of their community who believed this would cure their malnourishment — risked infection. They were miserable.
Till district collector Swarochish Somvanshi saw them. Moved, he had the air-conditioners in his office shifted to the shelter. His action inspired others. Donations from the townspeople now amount to Rs 5 lakh in three days.
The tribal children were in terrible condition as 90% of them had been branded with hot irons.
Somvanshi (34), a 2012 batch IAS officer, said, “We have initiated a scheme named Sanjeevani to tackle malnutrition in our district. There are four nutritional rehabilitation centres (NRC) here, with about 100 children in all. A major difference between such centres in cities like Bhopal is that here the children are not only malnourished but most of them also have burn injuries from being branded with hot irons because of tribal superstitions. The risk of infection rises with the temperature.”
There is no fund allocated for ACs for NRCs, the collector said. “Getting a proposal cleared would have taken some time. We had only Rs 13,000 with our local Red Cross society. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to ask a subordinate to shift their AC while I sat in cool comfort. So we shifted the AC from my chamber and three from the meeting room,” Somvanshi said.
“We did this two days ago. After the ACs were shifted, a lot of people donated to the Red Cross fund and in three days we collected Rs 5 lakh. We have already made plans to revamp the NRCs,” he said.
Somvanshi has a reputation of being a go-getter with a heart. During his stint in Singrauli district, he and his wife would coach local youngsters to crack competitive exams. And he formed a group of youngsters, named it “Yuwa”, and asked them to be his eyes and ears on government schemes and people’s needs.
In Seoni district, as district panchayat CEO, Somvanshi launched a web portal and an app to encourage healthy competition among government departments in civil work. He began a system to rate and rank construction projects on the basis of quality, rather than quantity as was the practice.