Exaggerated, and how…

First, he said media reports were ‘‘highly exaggerated’’. Today, Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde dismissed his governm...

First, he said media reports were ‘‘highly exaggerated’’. Today, Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde dismissed his government’s figures of 1,000 tribal children dying in June as ‘‘highly exaggerated’’.

Melghat, he would say, is part of this exaggeration. Between April and June, 86 children have died across the 269 villages in Melghat, the state’s north-eastern corner that is home to a tribal people called the Korku. This, despite mid-day meals, employment guarantee schemes and other government incentives.

The Indian Express visited ground zero of malnutrition in the country’s wealthiest state, only to find the worries are just beginning. July to September is when the toll shoots — rains and disease coupled with malnutrition.

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‘‘The death figure may cross 500 in the coming three months,’’ said Kiran Paturkar, one of the four original petitioners who moved the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court in 1993. It was commenting on this case — clubbed recently with another at Mumbai — that made acting Chief Justice A.P. Shah demand on Tuesday: ‘‘Where is the committment of the state?’’

Certainly not in Hirabambai, located at the heart of tribal homeland. The village appeared on the political map more than 10 years ago when then CM Sharad Pawar came visiting following deaths due to malnutrition. Now, at least even children here are in an acute state of malnourishment, with no help in sight. Just as they are in Raipur in Semadoh, Bori in Harisal, Kusumkhurd, Harisal…

District officials too believe the panic is overreaction — after all, the situation this year is better. ‘‘The annual tally has come down from 519 in 1999-2000 to 495 in 2003-2004. Last year, the corresponding April-to-June death figure was 112,’’ says Assistant District Health Officer of Dharni, P. S. Dalu. Dharni has been the crucible of government initiatives against malnutrition. Together, they hold the 269 tribal villages that make up the state’s biggest Project Tiger reserve.

Doctors Ravi Kolhe and his wife Smita, who have been treating tribals from the remote Bairagadh village for 20 years now, say there could be more deaths this year. Tribals migrated to neighbouring states for work in November after the agricultural season ended and the state did little to keep them back home with alternative sources of livelihood.

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Parents of the affected children say the government has been providing food under the mid-day meal scheme but the help is ill-timed. There is little intervention when the Korku tribals migrate to MP, Andhra and neighbouring Amravati district where the children suffer. Then by June-end, the monsoon cripples health services. This is when malnutrition worsens from mild Grade II to critical Grade IV. No treatment at this stage, means death.

‘‘We have many sub-schemes under the parent Navsanjivani scheme specially implemented in this area since 1995. We do provide them with jobs under Employment Guarantee Scheme,’’ said D.M. Hedau who holds additional charge as project officer of the Integrated Tribal Development Project in Dharni. What he doesn’t say is that there is little tribals can do to feed their families once the harvest is done in November.