NHRC issues notice to Gujarat govt on separate anganwadis

New Delhi: The national Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to the Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development, and the Gujarat government after taking suo motu cognisance of a report in The Indian Express on separate anganwadis for Dalit and non-Dalit children in a Hajipur village of Patan district in Gujarat.

READ: In Gujarat’s Patan district, separate anganwadis for Dalit children

The report, published on November 5, stated that a three-year-old Dalit girl was stopped at the gate of the anganwadi meant for the children of Patidars and Brahmins.

The NHRC has observed that the report “raises a serious issue of violation of human rights of Dalits”. It has sought a reply within two weeks.

Nearly 130 kilometres from Ahmedabad, Hajipur is a village of about 2,000 people. Like in most other villages of Patan, the Patels or Patidars constitute nearly 70 per cent of Hajipur’s population. The 40 Dalit houses in the village are spread over two mohallas. Anganwadi No 159 was set up in 1997. Three years later, the Patidars and Brahmins demanded a separate anganwadi for themselves and moved into the premises of the adjoining primary school. The new anganwadi, No 160, now shares its space and entrance with the school, the boundary wall of the school separating the two anganwadis. The discrimination in the anganwadis was brought to the notice of the State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR). On July 11, 2014, SCPCR member Madhuben Senama and her team visited Hajipur and submitted a report to the chairperson of the commission. “It is true that my predecessor took no action on the report. But I have written to the district education officer of Patan and sought a report… I will be able to talk only after I get that report,” Bharatiben Gadhvi, who took over as chairperson of the SCPCR recently, told The Indian Express.

Source: The Indian Express