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Article143.png”” alt=””Article143″” />A day after the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) took a serious note of the death of children in a rehabilitation home in Jaipur, State Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has said that strict action would be taken against the government officials responsible for deaths of 11 mentally-challenged children during the past fortnight. Expressing disappointment over the deaths, Ms Raje said that even senior officers would not be spared for their lackadaisical attitude in handling this case. As many as 11 children have died in state-run rehabilitation home for mentally challenged children near Jaipur in the past fortnight allegedly because of contaminated water. Four children are still admitted in the hospital.

Chairing a high-level meeting to take stock of the situation at her residence, Ms Raje said the death of children was very serious and shocking incident suggesting unacceptable carelessness of the officers concerned in this case. “”Whoever is responsible for this incident, sitting at whatever high position, will face strict action,”” she said. Others present at the meeting were the State Health Minister Rajendra Rathore, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Shri Arun Chaturvedi and the Chief Secretary.

Ms Raje asked the officers of all departments concerned including Medical and Health, Public Health Engineering, Social Justice and Empowerment, Education and Tribal Area Development to conduct inspections of all hostels, residential schools and children’s homes immediately to ensure facilities like cleanliness, drinking water supply and health services. She said that district collectors and other senior officers should visit such hostels or schools and send reports to the respective department.

The CM directed preparation of protocols for diagnosis and control of water-borne and other infectious diseases during summers. She said that a state-level control room should be established to implement and monitor this protocol. Officers from all concerned government departments would constitute A special cell would also be set up, which function 24-hours a day. This cell would also monitor bleaching, cleaning and sampling of drinking water across the State.

The Chief Minister further directed installation of CCTV cameras at children’s homes for mentally-challenged, other children homes, hostels and residential schools run by different government departments or non-government agencies. This would ensure regular and effective monitoring of these institutes, she added.”