Congress leader P Chidambaram today accused the NDA government of “cruelly neglecting” the MGNREGA and the ‘Food Security Act’. He stated that the two legislations were brought by the previous UPA government to put an end to hunger deaths like that of the three minor girls in Delhi.
“MGNREGA was intended to put an end to hunger. FOOD SECURITY ACT was intended to put an end to starvation. Both have been cruelly neglected by the BJP government,” Chidambaram tweeted.
As long as there are children who tragically starve to death (Mansi, Shikha and Parul), we have to hang our heads in shame and grief,” he added.
NREGA, which was renamed as the MNREGA is a government scheme aiming to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
This tweet followed the event of three minor girls dying due to starvation in east Delhi. The Kejriwal government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the deaths of the three sisters who were found dead in east Delhi’s Mandawali area. The post-mortem report of these girls confirmed that they died due to malnutrition.
Speaking about the incident, Pankaj Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (east), said, “A board of doctors conducted a re-examination at the GTB hospital. According to the initial autopsy report, the girls died due to starvation and its complications.”
The Centre also ordered an inquiry into the deaths of the three sisters. Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the deaths were due to “poverty and illness” and was the “biggest failure of the system”.
Terming the deaths as “unfortunate”, human right activists raised the issue of lack of food and social security for the poor and marginalised, saying the government should stop being in denial of the existence of poverty and should effectively look into the implementation of such schemes for the betterment of the society.