On 1 May 2013, Asian Centre for Human Rights filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) against the death of tribal children due to malnutrition at Attappady in Palakkar district of Kerala till 17 April 2013.
Attappady consists of 171 hamlets. The valley is mostly inhabited by Muduga, Irula and Kurumba tribal people. There are three government primary health centres (PHC), one community health centre (CHC) and 27 sub-centres in Attappady. All hamlets are serviced by an effective government health extension program using trained tribal health volunteers.
Yet, cases of malnutrition including deaths were reported at regular intervals. Within a span of 15 months 17 tribal babies died due to alleged malnutrition and about 500 such cases were detected. 412 cases of anaemia were also detected till 16 April 2013. The cases of malnutrition and anaemia have been detected in a health survey conducted by the health department following the reports of malnutrition deaths. Till 17 April 2013, the survey had covered 20,613 tribal people in 6,619 houses.
Some instances of alleged malnutrition deaths cited by ACHR were:
On 16 April 2013, the baby of Meenakshi and Nagan of Edavani, a Kurumba tribal hamlet in the Pudur grama panchayat limits, died soon after birth in the Tribal Specialty Hospital at Kottathara. It was a premature birth at seven months of pregnancy. The child was underweight and malnourished.
On 15 April 2013, the daughter (11 days) of Meena and Rajendran of Aralikoonam of Bhoothayar hamlet in Pudur grama panchayat limits, died in a private hospital in Coimbator.
In the last week of December 2012, daughter (45 days) of Saraswathy and Mankikhandan died due to malnutrition in Aralikoonam hamlet. This case was not reported earlier.
The authorities often dismissed the alleged malnutrition deaths as deaths due to other reasons. The non-admission of the malnutrition deaths was one of the reasons for the inability to arrest the problem of malnutrition apart from failure to provide the government services to tackle the problem in the tribal hamlets of Attappady.
Proceedings before the NHRC:
The NHRC registered the complaint (437/11/10/2013) filed by ACHR and issued notice to the State Government of Kerala. The Health and Family Welfare Department in its reply on 15.07.2013 submitted a “Report on Infant Death in Attappady, Palakkad and submitted the list of 38 children who had died of malnutrition.
Vide its proceedings dated 7.07.2015, the NHRC directed issuance of a show cause notice under Section 18 of the Protection of Human Rights Act 1993 to the State Government of Kerala as to why an interim compensation of Rs 1 lakh each shall not be recommended to be paid to the 38 deceased tribal children/victim’s families who had due to malnutrition.
In response, the District Collector, Palakkad, Kerala vide letter dated 30.11.2017 informed the Commission that that the Government of Kerala had allotted Rs.38.00 lakhs to pay monetary relief of Rs. 1.00 lakh each to the next of kin of the 38 deceased infants in tribal colonies in Attapady, Kerala. As per the list of 38 families furnished by the Nodal Officer, Tribal Health, Attapady, the amount was released to the mothers of the deceased infants by issuing Treasury Savings Bank Cheques (Cheque No. 0431922 to 0431948 and 0431950 to 0431960). The District Collector further informed that the Government of Kerala has again issued another order to allot Rs.34.00 lakhs to pay Rs. 1.00 lakh each to the next of kin of remaining 34 deceased infants in Attapady.
The NHRC vide its order dated 9th February 2018 closed the case.
