SOCIETY
Starving children of ‘shining’ India
Neeta Lal

India may well be `shining’ to the world at large but when it comes to its children’s health, the picture is far from glossy. The recently released National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), the third pan-India survey conducted since 1992 (covering 200,000 people from 15-54 years), highlights some sobering facts on this front. According to the survey, conducted between December, 2005, and August, 2006, a whopping 45.9 per cent of India’s under-three kids are underweight, 39 per cent are stunted, 20 per cent severely malnourished, 80 per cent anaemic while infant mortality hovers at 67 per 1,000. More than 6,000 Indian children below five years die every day due to malnourishment or lack of basic micronutrients like vitamin A, iron, iodine, zinc or folic acid. Overall, India hosts 57 million — or more than a third — of the world’s 146 million undernourished children.

Shockingly, even sub-Saharan Africa has a better record of child malnourishment at 30 per cent while China records 8 per cent and Pakistan 37 per cent.

While sociologists rue India’s iniquitous social development — despite six decades of independence — doctors are worried about its physical repercussions. Elaborates paediatrician Dr Suresh Kasana of Spring Meadows Hospital, New Delhi, "Malnourishment needs urgent attention in our country because during the first two years of a child’s life, the problem is irreversible. It severely retards a child’s cognitive, physical and emotional growth and has a cascading effect on his/her productivity in adult years."

"India should be worried," notes Werner Schultink of Unicef. "It is going to be difficult for India to use its human resources to develop the nation without making improvements on its health front." In Manipur, for instance — where the per capita income is Rs 12,230 (up from Rs 10,300 in the 1980s) — there is 28 per cent malnutrition, while Gujarat (with a per capita income of Rs 21,276) has 45 per cent. Similarly, Orissa’s malnourishment figure is 50 per cent with a per capita income of Rs 10,103 while Maharashtra at Rs 24,736 has malnutrition levels of 51 per cent. Kerala’s per capita income is Rs.21,310 and that of Karnataka Rs.18,324 while their malnutrition levels are 27 per cent and 44 per cent, respectively. Similarly, the percentage of underweight children in Gujarat (one of India’s richest states) had upped to 47 per cent from 45 per cent seven years ago. In Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous state — the percentage of anaemic children under three had risen to 85 per cent from 74 per cent in 2001.

According to Minister of State for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury, the problem of children’s malnutrition can only be tackled through holistic, coordinated interventions in the areas of food security, health, sanitation, safe drinking water, nutrition, family welfare and poverty alleviation.

This would involve several steps, including the expansion of the current number of community development or anganwadi centres (AWCs) under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) — from the current 600,000 to 1,400,000 — and doubling of financial norms for supplementary nutrition from one rupee to two per beneficiary per day. Chowdhury also recommends that all SC/ST slums and hamlets be provided with AWCs.

However, 110 million children still remain outside the programme’s ambit, which was meant to expand its reach gradually but has not because of India’s population explosion.

It is time to realise that tackling children’s malnutrition is no child’s play. It is a serious problem that needs to be addressed through greater synergy between the Centre, state and NGOs. — WFS

HOME