The wails of women is most heart-rending when heard from a distance but when one sees her banging her head against the mound of earth under which her son has been buried , it becomes difficult to stop even the stone-hearted person from crying. The scenes were horrific and shameful, one would feel himself living in the age when human kind was just transgressing from jungle man to member of civilized society . There were close to 25 children buried in the same premises where they were supposed to be blossomed into flowers. we saw it 1000s of Kms away from this place but sequence of events were disgusting. The unfolding of mechanism of facilities in education and health has left many questions to be answered. The primary schools and health care in the remote areas are just on the papers and in no circumstances can be called even the facilities. A school is running in a 20 ft * 15 ft room with having facilities of meals which are made from poor quality rice and rotten vegetables . Needless to mention the quality of other ingredients of meal with hardly any supervision in cooking . teachers reported to the school on their mercy and supply chain of the food articles are controlled by a bigger nexus of politicians , babus and those who are lucky few to be involved in this. There is hardly any health facility in vicinity and primary health care is in mess in absence of even basic facilities and doctors. Reaching to the nearest basic hospital is like climbing the mount everest. is it very far from sub-Sahara conditions? we are talking about the heartland of our country, having the most fertile agriculture land and most dense population. Why are we still living in these conditions and allowing such situations to happen? Is it only the political class to be blamed for this or the whole society has conspired for this. Where is the root ? policies, politics or practices which are mostly corrupt.
Policies - what is the rational of providing schools which is governed by teachers whose salaries are not even adequate to survive his own families? why he would work with sincerity when his own survival is a question mark? Why don't we think while drafting such policies which is just around providing the bare minimum and no method of self sustenance and every opportunities of drainage of resources?
Politics - why do we get allured by the political parties on the eve of election with such freebies and happy accepting and in return agreeing to press the button. Why don't we ask for self governance?why we allow ourselves to be controlled by a bunch of people who have no business to get into our lives and ruin it?
Practices- why don't we raise our voice ?why should we allow a corrupt practices to take place? why do on the first instance we praise those people who have made money out of corruption ?why do we accept this social evil in first place. All those who are amassing wealth by abusing us and the system needs no mercy and must be socially boycotted.
The answer to all questions is not so simple but not very difficult either. There is need of change at all level else the breaking news will keep coming in, remains a discussion point for some time till the next one comes in.
It's a very sad state of affairs.
ReplyDeleteWe talk *lot* more than our Actions. In fact, mid-day-meal as a policy doesn't have a flaw. I have witnessed people going hungry or with just a meal a day, which is again a throw-away from our silver-spooned household.
Providing everyone with Food, and Educating them at the same time is something which I think is excellent step.
Yes, Execution and application of Policy is questionable. Administration at large is dead or they are busy with their "Rule Books". What needs to come-in is "Accountability", and that would only exists if people start fearing "wrong-doings" rather than their Gods.
In a very remote village in Jharkhand, I was talking to someone in School who was a teacher and manages these Mid-day meals, I was surprised to hear the level of corruption. He was utterly frustrated with the program as he was supposed to take care of more affairs other than teaching. I asked him questions around Food-poisoning and preventive measure that School takes. As you rightly, pointed out there's nothing.
Health Centers are empty because there's no Doctor who would want to serve Rural India for 100Rs/patient. There won't be many Medical Reps reaching him and paying him for writing a preferred drug. You could just go on and on with challenges and problems.
The only connection an average "Facebooked" Indian with rural is "roots". There's no other reason to ignore Urban India and invest into building a sustainable Rural economy. I mean, I am least concerned about mis-utilization of resources but more concerned about the maturity of ours to form the policy, execute it and sustain it.
What do you think is that one thing which we should be doing?
the mid day meal must be tasted/checked,
ReplyDeleteeveryday by the team responsible persons,
before its distribution to the children of any school. Mid day meal is responsible for increase in the strength of students in Government schools, by leaps and bounds.
BR,
kamal