42% underweight children, a national shame: Manmohan Singh

Highlighting that 42% children were underweight in a country witnessing high growth, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today described it as a national shame and said the government could not rely solely on ICDS to address the issue.

"...the problem of malnutrition is a matter of national shame. Despite impressive growth in our GDP, the level of under-nutrition in the country is unacceptably high," he said releasing a report on Hunger and Malnutrition (HUNGaMA) here.

Pointing out that India had not succeeded in reducing the levels of malnutrition fast enough, he said, "Though the ICDS continues to be our most important tool to fight malnutrition, we can no longer rely solely on it."

The HUNGaMA report states that the prevalence of child underweight has decreased from 53% to 42%, marking a 20.3% fall over a seven year period with an average annual rate of reduction of 2.9%.

The survey found that the rates of child malnutrition were still unacceptably high in the 100 focus districts with the poorest child development indicators where over 40% of children were underweight and almost 60% stunted.

"We need to focus on districts where malnutrition levels are high and where conditions causing malnutrition prevail," Singh said.

He said policy makers and programme implementers need to clearly understand many linkages - between education and health, sanitation and hygiene, drinking water and nutrition ?" and then shape their responses accordingly.

Singh pointed out that while the survey reports high levels of malnutrition, it also indicates that one child in five has reached an acceptable healthy weight during the last seven years in 100 focus districts.

"This 20% decline in malnourishment in the last seven years is better than the rate of decline reported in National Family Health Survey-III," he said.

"However, what concerns me is that 42% of our children are still underweight. This is an unacceptably high occurrence," he said.

The report, on the survey conducted by Naandi Foundation, has been made at the insistence of the Citizens' Alliance against Malnutrition which comprises young parliamentarians, artistes, directors, social activists and policy makers.

The Prime Minister said his government was working to launch a strengthened and restructured ICDS; to start a multi-sectoral programme for 200 high burden districts and to initiate a nationwide communication campaign against malnutrition.

"The fact is that while India has been progressing quite a lot in the last 20 years, the fight against the malnutrition has not made as much progress," BJD MP Jay Panda, a member of the Alliance, told reporters here.

He said the Alliance will now adopt three blocks in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and apply some of the learnings from the report to show that malnutrition can be tackled at a much more rapid pace.

Among those present at the function to release the report at the Prime Minister's residence included Union Minister Sachin Pilot, filmmaker-turned-MP Shyam Benegal, actor Rahul Bose, singer Penaz Masani, MPs Jay Panda, Jyoti Mirdha, Madhu Yaski Goud and Shahnawaz Hussain.