'These children possess catastrophically low birth weights -- often 1.4 kgs or less. Such extremely low birth weight results in profoundly compromised neo-natal immunity.'
'The escalation to 97 deaths in three months precipitated contemporary attention precisely because this magnitude concentrates the humanitarian emergency, rendering it impossible for the administrative machinery to ignore.'
Kindly note this image has only been posted for representational purposes. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters
For over three decades, Chikhaldara -- the tribal blocks of Dharni and Melghat in Amravati district, Maharashtra - a scenic hill station in Maharashtra's east, has remained a tragic symbol of systemic neglect: Entrenched malnutrition, chronic infant-maternal mortality and institutional failure.
In 2025 the crisis has entered a dire phase. Petitioners Dr Rajendra Burma and Padma Shri awardee Dr Ravindra Koelhe told the Bombay high court that between June and November 2025, 65 infants (0 to 6 months) died due to malnutrition; more than 220 children are currently suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM), many facing death without urgent intervention.
On November 12, 2025, Bombay high court Justices Revati Mohite‑Dere and Sandesh D Patil sharply criticised the Maharashtra government for its 'extremely casual' attitude and called the toll 'horrific.'
Following that, on November 25 the court ordered top state secretaries -- from public health, tribal affairs, women and child development, and finance -- to personally visit Melghat on December 5, 2025, inspect conditions and submit a full action-taken report by December 18. They must bring along senior officials from PWD, water and sanitation, district administration, and forest department.
Despite decades of orders, nothing concrete has been delivered on ground -- and this fresh judicial directive has rekindled hope, but also demands far more than customary visits.
In this interview with Prasanna D Zore/Rediff, Nagpur-based advocate and social activist Jugalkishor Gilda speaks as someone who has fought this cause for decades: To expose root failures, demand real change, and insist on justice for Melghat's children.
What are the fundamental causes for malnutrition and preventable deaths of small children in Melghat despite decades of schemes and court orders since the 1990s?
The causation is multifaceted. Firstly, the Forest Conservation Act has systematically divested these communities of traditional resource rights. Their livelihood patterns and cultural framework have been fundamentally disrupted.
Secondly, these communities lack access to nutritionally adequate food sources aligned with their dietary requirements. The Korku population speaks only their native language, creating linguistic barriers to education and engagement with government services -- both critical for nutritional awareness.
Thirdly, early marriage remains endemic. Girls marry at thirteen to fourteen and become pregnant shortly after menstruation, resulting in extremely young mothers bearing children when their own bodies remain developmental. These pregnancies produce catastrophically low birth weights.
Fourthly, forest conservation restrictions have eliminated income-generating opportunities, creating persistent economic deprivation. Critically, while remedial measures have been prescribed through judicial orders, systematic implementation remains absent.
The malnutrition death crisis in this region has been litigated continuously since the early 1990s but nothing seems to have been achieved so far on the ground?
Because pronouncements on paper don't feed babies, don't deliver doctors, don't build roads. Over decades we saw orders after orders -- hospitals promised, infrastructure ordered -- but on ground things stayed same. The moment pressure eases, the system relaxes back.
Even now -- this new visit ordered on December 5 -- may end up as a ritual: Officials show up, take a few photographs, file a report, and leave. Worse -- when they go back, the villages slip again into neglect.
Unless there is constant supervision, periodic accountability, and willingness to apply real pressure on bureaucratic machinery, nothing will change.
What are the specific demands in your current petition before the Bombay high court?
Not lip-service. I demand:
Immediately fill all sanctioned posts -- paediatricians, gynaecologists, nurses, lab staff -- and keep them permanently posted under hardship allowances. Make all primary health centres and sub-district hospitals functional: electricity, water, medicines, blood-bank facilities, neonatal ICU, referral ambulances. Provide real nutritional support -- not just dry rations or cursory pulses -- but hot cooked meals, proteins (eggs, milk, bananas), caloric supplements, diet suitable to tribal nutritional needs. Fix roads, ensure safe drinking water and sanitation, set up clean water supply, so that access to healthcare and nutrition becomes possible. Ring-fence budget: Assure that money sanctioned for Melghat actually reaches there; end diversion or leakage. Launch sustained outreach and health-education in the tribal language, involve community, traditional leaders -- so awareness spreads.
Anything less is hypocrisy.
The court called the deaths 'horrific' and ordered senior secretaries to visit. Will that make a difference?
It can -- but only if they (the state government and all the administrative bureaucracies responsible for implementation of malnutrition related schemes) convert words into real work.
If they treat this as a 'one-time fact-finding mission,' then no. If they stay there 2-3 days, but visit only easy-to-reach villages, skip the remotest hamlets -- then nothing changes.
What needs to happen: After the visit they must submit concrete, date-bound action plans: list of vacant posts filled (with names), road-repair work orders, supply of nutrition kits with dates, deployment of ambulances, referral-system audits -- otherwise this court order will become just another piece of paper in dusty files.
Regarding budgetary depletion from other departments because of the Mukhya Mantri Laadki Bahin Yojana scheme, is this empirically documented?
This represents documented administrative reality. The finance department itself acknowledges this phenomenon. Since implementation, departmental budgets have been systematically reduced by fifty to sixty per cent.
Every ministry -- health, tribal welfare, women and child development, rural development -- has experienced corresponding reductions.
Why has compliance with previous court orders remained elusive despite decades of judicial directives?
The fundamental issue is lack of political will.
Should political leadership genuinely prioritise these populations, resources could be mobilised and interventions implemented. The political establishment reserves welfare allocations for what they term 'freebies' -- provisions distributed to urban populations during electoral campaigns to secure votes.
Between elections, these populations experience systematic neglect. Capacity exists; Minister (Nitin) Gadkari (when he was the minister for public works department in Maharashtra between 1995 and 1999) constructed sixty per cent of Melghat's road network between 1995 and 1999. However, since 1999 -- for twenty-six years -- these roads have received no maintenance. This exemplifies that infrastructure capacity exists; what is absent is prioritisation and political commitment.
In the recent mortality figures, would you characterise these 97 deaths as preventable?
While zero mortality from malnutrition may represent an aspirational objective, the magnitude of preventable deaths is substantially reducible through genuine implementation of court-directed interventions. These 97 (malnutrition) deaths (from 65 reported previously) represent preventable mortality -- symptoms of systemic neglect, I would say.
These children possess catastrophically low birth weights -- often 1.4 kgs or less. Such extremely low birth weight results in profoundly compromised neo-natal immunity. Consequently, infections that healthy children withstand prove fatal to these severely malnourished infants.
The escalation to 97 deaths in three months precipitated contemporary attention precisely because this magnitude concentrates the humanitarian emergency, rendering it impossible for the administrative machinery to ignore.
You said that the Union government allocates only ten rupees daily for supplementary nutrition. Is this sufficient?
What nutritional value provides ten rupees in today's market conditions? One can scarcely procure half a cup of tea. A quality banana costs Rs 6-7. Consider the supply chain: Government allocates one hundred rupees per intervention; merely fifty to sixty rupees reaches beneficiaries.
Forty per cent is siphoned throughout the supply chain and the ecosystem that delivers this money to the needy.
We have petitioned the court for seven years for comprehensive audits of nutrition schemes. The Union government has failed to file substantive responses.
How significant is the Bombay high court's recent condemnation for catalysing change?
Judicial pronouncements, while institutionally significant, possess limited capacity to compel administrative change. Courts can issue orders; the executive must implement.
The government constitutes a welfare state obligated to provide welfare provision regardless of political party in power. Yet this obligation remains consistently unfulfilled.
What court criticism can really do is put on record the government's neglect and help stir public awareness. But these words alone don't change things on the ground -- that needs strict follow-up and true political will to act.
Your personal commitment to this cause spans over thirty years. What has motivated this sustained engagement?
I have pursued this cause consistently, absorbing personal financial costs. I have travelled by sleeper-class railway accommodation because government compensation proves insufficient. I have undertaken this work through moral obligation to these children.
The blessings of these children have proven transformative -- from private advocate to government counsel, advocate general (of Chhattisgarh between 2014 and 2018), I have seen it all.
What essential guidance would you offer policymakers regarding prevention of further tragedies?
Malnutrition elimination demands far more than superficial food distribution programmes. It requires comprehensive systemic transformation: Robust maternal and child healthcare, integrated nutrition and health interventions, cultural engagement and behaviour change communication, rejection of Forest Conservation Act restrictions that have dispossessed these communities of livelihood resources, and interdepartmental convergence ensuring coordinated implementation across health, tribal welfare, women and child development, rural development, and public works.