Over 9 lakh children suffer severely acute malnutrition, states Centre; 3.98 lakh from UP

Over 9,27,606 children are severely acute malnourished in India as of 30 November 2020, revealed Union Mister for Women and Child development Smriti Irani on Thursday, in a written reply to Rajya Sabha. Irani further revealed that of the 9 lakh+ children, 3,98,359 are from the State of Uttar Pradesh. In reply to AAP MP Sanjay Singh, Irani stated that under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), supplementary nutrition is provided to these children.

9 lakh+ children severely malnourished

To counter malnourishment among children in the age group of 0-6 years, Irani stated that the POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched on 8th March, 2018. Under the newly launched Mission Poshan 2.0, Irani stated that pregnant women and lactating mothers were focused upon to provide nutritional content. As per the data, while Rs 5312.79 crores have been released to states/UTs from 2017-18 to 2020-21, only Rs. 2985.56 crores have been utilised up to 31 March, 2021.

Giving state-wise details of the funds disbursed and utilised till date under the Anganwadi Services Scheme, Rs 15797 crores were disbursed to states for 2020-21 with UP receiving Rs 1985 cr, followed by Bihar (Rs 1270 cr), Madhya Pradesh (Rs 1220 cr) and Maharashtra (Rs 1187 cr). In 2019-2020, while Rs 16813 crores were disbursed, Rs 17304 crores were utilised. On the other hand, in 2018-19, Rs 16750 crores were disbursed of which Rs 15150 were utilised. Fund utilisation of Fy 2020-21 is not available as of date.

As per the National Family Health Survey 5, released in December 2020, in 13 out of 22 states and union territories, the percentage of children with stunted growth has increased. The highest was seen in Gujarat (39%), followed by Maharashtra (35%), West Bengal (33.8%), Telangana (33.1%) and Kerala at 23.4%. Moreover, the survey found that more than half of the children and women are anaemic in 13 of the 22 States/UTs. It has also been observed that anaemia among pregnant women has increased in half of the States/UTs compared to NFHS-4. As many as 60 per cent of child deaths in India are due to malnutrition as weaker children have very low immunity. These figures relate to the pre-pandemic period, and the trend for the phase of NFHS data collected after the COVID-19 might likely get even worse, believe experts.