March 09, 2008	Sunday	Safar 30, 1429

DERA GHAZI KHAN, March 8: The heavily-funded door-to-door campaign under the National ORS Movement by the National Commission for Human Development has failed to serve the purpose, it is learnt through various people.

Launched in 2007, the project envisaged a door-to-door campaign to teach the women method of preparing ORS (Nimkol) at home in rural areas to control infant mortality.

However, many people told Dawn that the visiting teams only distributed method charts among the illiterate women instead of telling them how to prepare the ORS.

Shamim Mai, a resident of one of the houses marked by the NCHD, told Dawn that the officials delivered the method chart which was useless for her as she couldn’t read. Many residents of Gaddai corroborated the claim and questioned the utility of the campaign.

When this correspondent asked if she could prepare ORS at home and had any idea why it was beneficial to children, Naseem Bibi, of Malana village, replied in the negative.

Many are the areas where the teams assigned the task have yet to pay a visit, some people complained.

As many as 300 lady health workers and their scores of supervisors are engaged in the project which costs Rs1.5 million a month.

Campaign in-charge Ms Rubina was not available for comment while the NCHD district general manager denied the issue raised by the women.