Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in one of its reports, has talked of considerable gain that Gujarat has made in bringing down malnutrition. Gujarat government went to town tom-toming about the progress but it didn’t speak of how the level of severely malnourished children has skyrocketed in the state – as mentioned in the same report.
The percentage of severely malnourished children in Gujarat has gone up from 0.85% (of total number of children weighed) in 2006-07 to 4.56% in 2010-11.
In its report on Integrated Child Development Services Scheme, CAG has compared malnutrition data from 2006-07 to 2010-11.
The report points out that moderate malnutrition among children has dipped in Gujarat, from 69.83% in 2006-07 to 34.21% in 2010-11, but also mentions that severe malnutrition has increased in the state – from 0.85% to 4.56% – in the same five-year period. This report was tabled in the parliament on March 5, 2013.
Those working for child nutrition have an interesting take as to why Gujarat could bring down its moderate malnutrition levels, but performed poorly in the severely malnourished category.
“Extreme under-nutrition cannot be tackled with nutritious food alone since it is caused due to inadequate intake of nutritious food over a longer period,” said Smita Bajpai of CHETNA. “We need to address issues of safe drinking water, sanitation and access to medical facilities, too, if we want to win the battle against severe malnutrition,” she added.
MALNOURISHED MORE IN URBAN AREAS
The statistics on the severely malnourished, startlingly enough, mentions that urban areas have higher malnutrition levels than in rural areas. In a presentation made at Chintan Shibir recently, Anju Sharma, commissioner of women and child development, also raised concern about the matter. As per data in her presentation, extreme malnutrition in urban areas was at 2.13% in 2013 while it was 1.63% in rural areas.
Bajpai opines that high level of malnutrition in urban areas could be partly because of migration from rural to urban areas in search of livelihood.
“The hygiene and sanitation condition in urban slums is extremely poor,” said Bajpai. “Due to high prices, the poor are unable to access nutritious food like milk, pulses and fats.
Further, children in urban areas have easy access to packaged foods, which are poor on nutrition content. These factors, though often ignored, play an important role in improving or deteriorating over malnutrition situation anywhere,” she said.
