Value Added Article: Nutritional Status in India | Category – Poverty and Hunger | Source – Yojana

Relevance: GS Paper II (Development and Welfare)

Source:

Yojana Magazine - Chrome IAS


Introduction

India is home to over 40 million stunted and 17 million wasted children (under-five years). Although India has made sizeable economic and social gains over the last two decades, the challenge of maternal and child undernutrition remains a national public health concern and a policy priority for the current government.


Existing policy framework

  • The most prominent government nutrition interventions include the ICDS programme led by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), and the NHRM led by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW). Both these prioritise the role of community level organisations –AWCs and AWWs under the ICDS and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) under the NHRM – for the delivery of nutrition interventions to the target groups of pregnant and lactating mothers, and infants.
  • These programmes are supplemented by the PDS, which is used to provide subsidised food grains to large sections of the country’s poor.
  • In addition, more than six states, including Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Karnataka, and most recently Jharkhand have also established state nutrition missions.
  • The National Nutrition Mission (NNM) has been set up with a three year budget of Rs.9046 crore commencing from 2017-18. It will be a central nodal agency that helps coordinate central and state government programmes and infuse them with additional funds/resources.

Recommendations

  • Strengthen and restructure ICDS, and leverage PDS: ICDS needs to be in mission mode, with a sanction of adequate financial resources (from the central government) and decision-making authority.
  • Extend coverage of food fortification of staples: Currently, fortification of staples is limited to the mandatory iodization of salt. The standards of the hot cooked meal should also be changed to using only fortified inputs.
  • Target multiple contributing factors, for example, WASH: The underlying drivers for India’s ‘hidden hunger’ challenges are complex and go beyond direct nutritional inputs.
  • Align agricultural policy with national nutritional objectives: Agriculture policy must be brought in tune with nutrition policy, with incentives provided for encouraging the production of nutrient-rich and local crops for self-consumption.
  • Boost private sector engagement in nutrition intervention: Private sector collaboration in the form of public-private partnerships (PPPs) has the potential to leverage the appropriate technology for scaling-up food fortification interventions and to develop and distribute nutrient-rich foods to improve maternal and infant nutrition.

Conclusion

A healthy population is a precondition for sustainable development, and India faces significant challenges in harnessing long-term dividends from its young population. India has made a promising commitment in the form of the National Nutrition Mission which will help us tackle the problem of malnutrition in children and mothers of the country. We need to ensure effective implementation of its strategy to achieve our nutrition goals.


 

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