BHUBANESWAR:The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pulled up the State Government for its failure in implementing various provisions of Prevention of Atrocities Act which has resulted in 75 atrocity victims (girls) being deprived of monetary relief.
The girl victims were from Mayurbhanj, Puri, Ganjam and Jagatsinghpur districts. The State Government, however, maintained that all Collectors and Sub-Collectors have been asked to reconstitute the district vigilance monitoring committee and conduct regular meetings as per codal provision.
The CAG maintained that for effective implementation and monitoring of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programmes including pre-school education, supplementary nutrition programmes, Sabala/KSY for adolescent girls, district level monitoring and review committee (DLMRC), block level monitoring committee and Village Level Scrutiny Committee were to be formed.
However, records of test checked districts revealed that though DLMRCs were formed in Sambalpur, Rayagada and Ganjam districts, no meeting was held during 2011-14 against the requirement of one meeting in each quarter. In five other districts, no committees were formed.
Similarly, block level review and monitoring committee meetings were to be held in each quarter. But such meetings were not held in test checked districts except Rayagada which conducted 19 meetings against the requirement of 132 during 2011-14.
The CAG observed that since DLRMC and block level monitoring and review committee (BLRMC) meetings were not held regularly, deficiencies/shortcomings like shortfall coverage of children including girls under Supplementary Nutrition Project, supply of adulterated ration to malnourished girls, inadequate infrastructure facilities in Anganwadi Centres (AWC) could not be addressed.
Even after intervention of different schemes and programmes for enrolment, retention of girl children in schools could not be achieved as 3.58 lakh girls remained out of school. Inadequate infrastructure, absence of hostels and short supply of text books contributed to non-enrolment/dropping out of girl students.
Besides, functioning of schools under National Child Labour Project in the State was not effective as 3.12 lakh children including 1.28 lakh girls were working. Incidence of missing children in the State was noticed as 8246 girls were reported missing during 2009-13.