10000 tribal families to get balanced food

MYSORE: It is good news for primitive tribes, particularly Jenu kuruba tribes in old Mysore region, as the government has decided to provide nutritious food to 10,000 families in the region. A study conducted by an NGO and students of Social Work Department had come out with disturbing figures that more than 40 per cent of the children and women of tribal population are malnourished.The survey stated that women who have attained puberty are malnourished and many are unable to feed their children. This has unfortunately, spread across the state.The government has started providing them 25 kg rice, two kg dal, one kg pulses, one kg millets and two kg sugar as the tribal population starves during monsoons as they cannot collecting minor produce for their livelihood. The situation is not any different in Mysore, Chamarajnagar and Kodagu. The worst affected were women and children and this has contributed to growing malnourishment among the tribals.The government has released Rs 2 crore to provide food grains for their livelihood. The tribal organisation and DEED, an NGO, had demanded the government to start preschool in all the 1,500 hadis in Mysore and Chamarajnagar.Then DC P Mannivanan and women and child welfare minister P M Narendra Swamy visited the hadis and sanctioned 15 preschools in Kakana Kote forest in Hunsur taluk. A survey was conducted on children aged below 18 years and women below the age of 35. Meanwhile, tribals want the government to ban selling liquor in tribal hadis.Though former CM S M Krishna and Forest Minister K H Ranganath had banned it within a two km radius of tribal hadis, the order remains on paper only.