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Melghat: A tribal tragedy
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Ektai village has the highest proportion of severely malnourished children in Chikaldhara block. Children above three attend Ektai’s Anganwadi centre, a day care where they are fed two meals a day.
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A child treatment centre (CTC) at Semadoh village. CTCs offer medicines to treat infections and have elaborate rules to feed children several times a day.
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Eleven-month-old Anita Parate with her grandmother. Severely malnourished, Anita received only one meal a day at the child treatment centre at Churni village.
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On the way to Hatru village, families spend the night in their fields atop racks like these, to protect their crops from wild animals.
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Villages have a common water source. Women spend long hours ferrying water to their homes.
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In Katkum village, children walk on stilts. It is a popular pastime.
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Food is cooked in unhygienic conditions at the ashram school
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This 'ashram' school at Jarida is a model residential school, which receives special funding from the government. More than 700 children study here.
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There is no electricity in Chilathi village, although electric lines were laid decades ago.
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Like everything else, schools never open in many parts of Melghat.
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More than Rs 4 million has been spent on this primary health centre in Hatru. The centre has not been used over the last year, apparently because of a leaky roof.
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These 'goods carriers' are popular in Melghat because public transport is limited.
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A severely malnourished child with her mother at Adnadi village. Her daily duties of tending to a newborn and working in the fields don't allow her to take her child to a public hospital.
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A severely malnourished child lies unattended at Ektai village. Her parents work in the fields the entire day.
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Amid verdant forests, Melghat, a tribal corner of Maharashtra, is symptomatic of many ills that plague the fight against child malnutrition and mortality in India.
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