Hyderabad: In a shocking incident, ‘Bal Amrutham Nutrition Powder” meant for distribution and to poor families to bring down malnutrition in children was being fed to cattle.
The Hyderabad police seized 130 bags of the ‘Bal Amrutham Nutrition Powder’ from a dairy farm in Dabeerpura of Hyderabad old city. One person Ansari Mohd Khan, 50, owner of Ansari Dairy Farm was arrested by the police.
Officials of the Hyderabad police said the Commissioner’s Task Force, South Zone Team, Hyderabad along with CDPS (Child Development Project) Officers and Dabeerpura Police jointly conducted raid on Ansari Dairy Farm, situated at New Road, Chanchalguda and sized huge quantity of Bal Amrutham Nutrition food worth Rs 2 lakh.
The “Bal Amrutham ” is the weaning food introduced under ICDS to provide improved supplementary nutrition to the children between 6 months to 3 years. The weaning food is a preparation of wheat, chana dal, milk powder, oil and sugar. It is fortified and thus provides 50 per cent of iron, calcium, vitamins and other RDA that children require per day. It is distributed in packets of 2.5 kg per child per month through Anganwadi Schools in the State. Bal Amrutham is executed by the Department for Women, Children, Disabled and Senior Citizens in Telangana.
In Telangana, the Women Development and Child Welfare Department supplies around 2,500 tonnes of Balamrutham every month. This quantity is supplied to over 15 lakh beneficiaries through different ICDS centers in the state, the official informed.
“Ansari is collecting the powder packets illegally from various Anganwadi Schools and using it to feed the cows/buffaloes as feeding in his dairy farm. Investigation is going on to know who all benefitted through the scam,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Gummi Chakravarthy.
Given its nutritional values and benefits, Telangana Foods’ Balamrutham is being continuously supplied to different districts of Andhra Pradesh.
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