Mumbai, September 16 (Daily Kiran) : Uddhav Thackeray, leader of the Shiv Sena, sharply criticized the Maharashtra government on Wednesday for its ongoing failure to provide basic health services and transportation infrastructure in remote tribal areas. In an editorial for the party’s mouthpiece, ‘Saamana’, Thackeray accused the administration of neglecting essential facilities while touting “rapid development” in regions like Nandurbar and Gadchiroli.
The editorial pointed out that despite the government’s constant claims of reform, progress has not reached the state’s far-flung tribal communities. Poor tribal residents continue to struggle for medical treatment, facing long journeys due to a severe lack of basic roads, emergency ambulances, mortuary vehicles, healthcare workers, and essential medicines.
Thackeray referenced two recent tragic incidents to highlight the human cost of administrative shortcomings. In one case, a pregnant woman, Phulwanti Devaram Padvi, in the predominantly tribal Nandurbar district had to travel seven kilometers on a makeshift stretcher made of bamboo and cloth due to the absence of roads and river bridges. After giving birth at the Pimpalkhuta health center, both she and her newborn had to return the same way.
In another incident, grieving parents in the remote Gadchiroli district were forced to carry the bodies of their two deceased children on their shoulders for 15 kilometers because local authorities failed to provide an ambulance or mortuary vehicle.
The editorial also drew attention to recurring structural issues in tribal districts, such as schoolchildren being compelled to cross rivers on rope bridges, young girls sleeping on hostel floors due to a lack of beds facing snakebite deaths, and ongoing child mortality due to malnutrition in areas like Melghat.
Citing previous stern warnings from the Bombay High Court, which stated that “child malnutrition among tribals is not an isolated problem but a failure of the government machinery,” Thackeray’s faction accused the state administration of being “dangerously sluggish and unresponsive to judicial warnings.”
The editorial concluded by urging the state government to address the daily struggles of tribal communities by building basic roads and ensuring emergency transport before promoting “digital and smart health services.” It criticized recent claims by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis regarding the introduction of “smart” and “digital” health services, calling for a focus on correcting ground-level realities first.
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