Pvt cos hijack food scheme for poor

[admin]

Panel To SC: 1000Cr ICDS Fraud Within Maha Alone
Nitin Sethi TNN

New Delhi: Private companies have hijacked the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), the government’s flagship scheme to provide food to poor children and their mothers, with contractors in Maharashtra alone controlling Rs 1,000 crore worth of supplies in contravention of Supreme Court orders, a report of the SC commissioners’ office says.
The SC orders bar contractors from supplying rations under the scheme. It only lets village communities, self-help groups and mahila mandals buy grain and prepare food for children.
The commissioners’ report, submitted to the court on Friday, warned that the contractor-corporate lobby had a firm grip over ICDS rations supply business, worth Rs 8,000 crore, in several states. It specifically referred to Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Meghalaya, besides Maharashtra. Detailing Maharashtra’s case, it said private companies had floated fronts in the names of ‘mahila mandals’ or women’s organizations to corner the lucrative Rs 1,000 crore annual supply of rations.
ICDS is India’s primary social welfare scheme to tackle malnutrition and health problems in poor children below 6 and their mothers. It is considered the backbone of government efforts to improve dismal family health indices in India — some of the worst even among developing countries.
The commissioners recommended that an independent investigation be conducted under the apex court’s supervision to investigate the possible nexus “between politicians, bureaucrats and private contractors in the provisioning of rations to ICDS, leading to largescale corruption and leakages”.
The report, prepared by the principal adviser to the commissioners, said the Maharashtra CM had been made aware of the scam by the commissioners as well as the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. They said the fact that the corrupt system continued unchecked showed the “level of influence” the contractors had over the “levers of power in Maharashtra”.
This report lays bare the modus operandi companies used to corner the lucrative contracts in Maharashtra. The state government first changed its rules in 2009 to allow not only communitybased organizations but also ‘women’s institutions’ to bid for the supply — a loose enough term to permit any contractor, company or agency with women on board to bid for the contracts.
Only three of these ‘women’s institutions’ got contracts for the entire state’s ration supply, which is worth over Rs 1,000 crore annually. None of these three mahila mandals — Venkateshwara Mahila Audhyogic Sahakari Sanstha, Mahalaxmi Mahila Grhaudyog & Balvikas Buddhesiya Audhyogic Sahakari Sanstha and Maharashtra Mahila Sahakari Grahudhyog Sanstha Limited — had any production capacity of their own.