Children from drought-hit families have their meal in a Bhagalpur village. Picture by Amit Kumar

Bhagalpur, April 29: To eat food like chura (beaten rice) and gur (jaggery) one needs strong teeth. But the social welfare department has apparently not taken note of this while deciding to serve such nutritious food to the children of the state’s drought-hit districts.

The department has sanctioned 3kg chura and 450gm gur each to children betw- een six months and six years of age in the Kosi region and other eastern districts of the state. Each child is all- otted Rs 60 to buy food from the menu drawn by the department.

While few doubt the nutritional value of chura-gur for children, the provision to serve it to infants and young children between six months and two-year-olds has attracted controversy. According to experts, the gover nment should have added milk or curd in the menu so that the rice could have been soft- ened to make it easy for younger children to eat and digest the food.

The secretary of the social welfare department-cum-director of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), N. Vijaylakshmi, has directed the district magistrates of the eastern districts to dist ribute the “additional nutritious food package” to the drought-hit children by April 30.

Chura and gur comprise the “additional nutrients” to be given to the children.

The government had declared almost all the eastern districts of the state, including Bhagalpur, Banka, Katihar, Saharsa and Madhepura, as drought-hit in 2010. The affected districts received the allotment for relief in March 2011. In a letter to the district magistrates, Vijaylakshmi said: “The time for relief distribution is yet to be over. You have to ensure that you finish the distribution of chura and gur for the children by April 30.”

Social workers and experts have questioned the government’s sensitivity on this. “Imagine the government’s sensitivity towards infants. How can they eat such hard food?” asked Vijay, a social worker. A senior official, however, said children in the age group of two to six years could eat chura-gur, which has high nutritional value. Other officials, however, preferred to remain silent on how children below two years of age, who barely have teeth, are supposed to eat such food.

Meanwhile, completing the chura-gur distribution work among children in Bhagalpur does not seem to be easy. The district administration was supposed to distribute chura-gur among the beneficiaries of Ismailpur and Narayanpur blocks on April 20-21. But it could not do so because chura had not been bought in the absence of the price guidelines.

The social welfare department has asked the officials concerned to buy gur at the official rate of Rs 32 per kg. However, no directive has been given on the rate at which chura was to be purchased.

The block officials concerned, in letters to the district programme officer, Sobha Kesri, has said since there was no guideline for the rate to purchase chura, the item could not be bought.