Press Release
No Aadhar, No Mid-day Meal:
The Right to Food and Work Campaign West Bengal condemns the capitulation of the West Bengal State Government to the Aadhar-centric policy of the Central Government. The last shameful addition to the ‘ No Aadhar, No Benefits’ policy of the Central Government is the Midday Meal Scheme(MDMS), where, in many states, Aadhar linkage has been made a precondition for children to get food in schools. Imposing such a condition is completely against a child’s right to food and nutrition and punitive for those who have no Aadhar cards.
The Project Director of CMDMP from West Bengal School Education Department had passed an order (Memo no: 522-ES(CMDMP)MDMS-11/2017) on 6th December 2017 asking all schools to collect detailed Aadhar information of each and every student. The logical next step by the Central Government will be to stop food where no Aadhar linking has been done, as is being done in other states.
On 15th December Supreme Court in its interim order regarding Aadhar enrollment had extended the last date to link Aadhar to services and Government benefits to 30th March 2018. Despite this, the Project Director has not rescinded his order.
Right from the beginning West Bengal Government was against this decision to make Aadhar mandatory to services and Government benefits and had condemned strongly. And Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had reiterated her criticism of the “problematic” linking of Aadhar saying” Linking Aadhar is very problematic. In the name of Aadhar Card, details have been put out on 210 government websites. This is dangerous for individual liberty, the society and the country...” On 25th October in a core committee meeting of Trinamul Congress Mamata Banerjee said that they (central Government) are interfering to the personal lives of the people in the name of Aadhar. On 30th October West Bengal Government had moved to Supreme Court against the Centre’s move to link all social welfare schemes with Aadhar. It is shocking that her government should act in this hypocritical manner and demand Aadhar linkage for the MDMS.
In the past few months there have been reports of about 10 starvation deaths in Jharkhand, Uttarpradesh, and Karnataka due to people’s inability to link ration cards to Aadhar. Almost 33 lakhs people in Rajasthan have stopped getting ration due to problems with their biometrics, not having Aadhar cards etc. In neighbouring Jharkhand, an 11 year old little girl named Sontoshi Kumari died when her family didn’t receive ration for 6 months because their ration card was not linked with Aadhar. As the school was closed due to Puja vacations, she did not receive the Midday meal also. According to her mother, Sontoshi’s last words were to beg for some rice.
India is ranked 100 out of 119 countries in the Global Hunger index. “The country is housing about 50 percent of undernourished children of the world”, said the joint study by Assocham and EY. The report found that towards the end of 2015, 40% of the Indian children were undernourished. West Bengal fares no better. A study of school going children in 2015 done by National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau showed that “among 24,108 recruited students aged between six and thirteen years, prevalence of under-nutrition was alarmingly high (about twenty-three percent). Furthermore, over half of the students (fifty-four percent) were at risk of developing malnutrition. On the other hand only seventeen percent students had ideal nutrition status” Therefore, the Government’s responsibility should be to feed the children rather than arm-twisting them into getting Aadhar card. Right to Food and Work Campaign demands immediate recall of the notice regarding Aadhar linking which is completely against public welfare and child’s right to food security.
No Aadhar, No Mid-day Meal:
The Right to Food and Work Campaign West Bengal condemns the capitulation of the West Bengal State Government to the Aadhar-centric policy of the Central Government. The last shameful addition to the ‘ No Aadhar, No Benefits’ policy of the Central Government is the Midday Meal Scheme(MDMS), where, in many states, Aadhar linkage has been made a precondition for children to get food in schools. Imposing such a condition is completely against a child’s right to food and nutrition and punitive for those who have no Aadhar cards.
The Project Director of CMDMP from West Bengal School Education Department had passed an order (Memo no: 522-ES(CMDMP)MDMS-11/2017) on 6th December 2017 asking all schools to collect detailed Aadhar information of each and every student. The logical next step by the Central Government will be to stop food where no Aadhar linking has been done, as is being done in other states.
On 15th December Supreme Court in its interim order regarding Aadhar enrollment had extended the last date to link Aadhar to services and Government benefits to 30th March 2018. Despite this, the Project Director has not rescinded his order.
Right from the beginning West Bengal Government was against this decision to make Aadhar mandatory to services and Government benefits and had condemned strongly. And Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had reiterated her criticism of the “problematic” linking of Aadhar saying” Linking Aadhar is very problematic. In the name of Aadhar Card, details have been put out on 210 government websites. This is dangerous for individual liberty, the society and the country...” On 25th October in a core committee meeting of Trinamul Congress Mamata Banerjee said that they (central Government) are interfering to the personal lives of the people in the name of Aadhar. On 30th October West Bengal Government had moved to Supreme Court against the Centre’s move to link all social welfare schemes with Aadhar. It is shocking that her government should act in this hypocritical manner and demand Aadhar linkage for the MDMS.
In the past few months there have been reports of about 10 starvation deaths in Jharkhand, Uttarpradesh, and Karnataka due to people’s inability to link ration cards to Aadhar. Almost 33 lakhs people in Rajasthan have stopped getting ration due to problems with their biometrics, not having Aadhar cards etc. In neighbouring Jharkhand, an 11 year old little girl named Sontoshi Kumari died when her family didn’t receive ration for 6 months because their ration card was not linked with Aadhar. As the school was closed due to Puja vacations, she did not receive the Midday meal also. According to her mother, Sontoshi’s last words were to beg for some rice.
India is ranked 100 out of 119 countries in the Global Hunger index. “The country is housing about 50 percent of undernourished children of the world”, said the joint study by Assocham and EY. The report found that towards the end of 2015, 40% of the Indian children were undernourished. West Bengal fares no better. A study of school going children in 2015 done by National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau showed that “among 24,108 recruited students aged between six and thirteen years, prevalence of under-nutrition was alarmingly high (about twenty-three percent). Furthermore, over half of the students (fifty-four percent) were at risk of developing malnutrition. On the other hand only seventeen percent students had ideal nutrition status” Therefore, the Government’s responsibility should be to feed the children rather than arm-twisting them into getting Aadhar card. Right to Food and Work Campaign demands immediate recall of the notice regarding Aadhar linking which is completely against public welfare and child’s right to food security.
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