This comes amid the social welfare department issuing a show cause notice to the Igatpuri centre. A DAY after the death of two persons and hospitalisation of 10 others at a residential rehabilitation centre for the mentally challenged at Igatpuri in Nashik district, one more minor was admitted to the local Rural Health Centre (RHC) on Thursday.
Teams of medical representatives have been appointed to be present at the RHC to ensure 24-hour medical support and monitoring.
This comes amid the social welfare department issuing a show cause notice to the Igatpuri centre.
“Action taken in this case may vary from withdrawal of their approval to run as a rehabilitation centre for special children to even police cases, if required. We are waiting for the test reports of food and water samples along with the final postmortem report confirming the cause of death before we decide on further plan of action. But we have issued a showcause notice to the centre as a part of procedure,” said Yogesh Patil, Zilla Parishad Social Welfare Officer.
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While the department has swung into action, the events from Igatpuri in the last couple of days have brought a larger issue to the fore — the lack of residential schools for the mentally challenged.
This has led to an increase in privately-run centres that cannot be regularised as residential schools because the department had stopped giving approval to new schools for those with special needs in 2016.
“This is due to the department’s inability and unwillingness to fund more schools with grants after providing them approvals,” said a special education teacher from Mumbai, requesting anonymity.
The said centre in Igatpuri, run by the Punyatma Prabhakar Sharma Trust, was also denied approval to run as a school, based on the same clause. It was later given approval as a residential rehabilitation centre for mentally challenged individuals because of its work in the field.
Santosh Bhinnar, a small-farmer from Kanadwadi village near Igatpuri; whose 15-year-old son Rahul is at this home for the past eight years, said, “My wife and I both have to work on the farm throughout the day, we have no time to take care of Rahul. Apart from being mentally challenged, he used to get epilepsy attacks. I still remember days when somebody would come running to tell us that Rahul has had an episode of attack and is lying unattended and we would run. Here, he is given required care.”
The situation is no different at Ganesh Bhale’s home. The family lives in Bhavli village in Igatpuri where they struggle to make ends meet.
Even as Ganesh is admitted to the RHC, his mother visits him daily. “I have to go back to work on the farm to work or what will we eat? The school representatives are taking good care of him anyway,” she said.
Local social activist Kiran Phaltankar from Janseva Pratishthan said, “Even after such a big incident, we hardly see parents or other relatives visiting these individuals….”
Cases like these are manifold at this Igatpuri rehabilitation centre housing around 100 special individuals who are catered to by a staff of 36, including 12 teachers trained in special education. Hemlata Jadhav, head of the home, said, “This is an unfortunate incident which has shocked the entire staff. Most of us stay on the premises and eat the same food served to the children as none of us is allowed to carry our tiffin.” Jadhav, who was also instructing staff to make lunch arrangements, added, “We all continue to eat here following the process. We fail to understand how this caused food-poisoning when two boys fell ill.”
Dr Kalyani Mandke, an expert in special education, said, “Even as the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act has been revised in 2016, the social welfare department, which is responsible to implement it, does not have clear data of persons with challenges. There are 21 disabilities defined in the Act, however there has never been a survey to identify individuals falling under each of these categories to design required policies. This is bound to create a void which will be catered to by organisations and there could definitely be some limitations there.”
According to special educators, the situation is rather concerning as schools catering to these children do not come under the education department at all.
Vilas Pandit, Secretary of the Shikshak Bharati Special School Cell, said, “There are around 1,000 special schools across Maharashtra out of which around 250 are for children who are mentally challenged. While those in cities are day-schools, many such schools for mentally challenged in rural areas are residential in nature.”