KATHMANDU: Informal Sector Service Center (INSEC) today disputed the claim of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) that the food it had distributed to far-western region was of acceptable standard.

The human rights watchdog also raised serious concerns over the recent government report which had ruled out the correlation between the WFP-supplied food and diarrhoeal toll in the region.

Condemning the government and the WFP's findings, the organisation has sought a clarification from the government as to why 450 people died of diarrhoea in mid and far western region of the country.

Subodh Pyakhurel, INSEC's president charged that the government has surrendered itself before the UN agency (WFP) by publishing a report that was biased without trying to find what actually triggered the diarrhoeal toll. INSEC claims that the food that had been distributed to the people in the region was 'unfit for human consumption'.

A report released today by INSEC and Consumers' Right Protection Forum (CRPF), based on a field visit, has cited WFP's poor quality supplies as causing diarrhoeal toll in the region.

The study was undertaken from mid-April to mid-August, Pyakurel said, adding, “Food samples tested at the Central Food Laboratory confirmed that the WFP-supplied food was of poor quality.” The report further mentioned that the government was incapable of monitoring the quality and standard of the food being distributed across the country.

The report charged that the government is blindly importing the food without verifying its quality.

The report, however, cites polluted water and poor sanitary condition adding to the problem caused of food quality. It has also held the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) partly responsible for the death toll by not responding to the outbreak of the disease on time and not mobilising enough of health personal and not dispatching necessary medicines.

INSEC has also charged that the MoHP failed to perform the post-moretem report of all those who died.

Jyoti Baniya, general secretary of CRPF reasoned that government was unable to take any action against the UN's WFP after the latter threatened the government of halting the food supplies.

“The National Human Rights Commission in its report has also shown that low quality food was one of the reasons why many succumbed to diarrhoea,” he added.