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India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) needs to undergo significant changes to address the current malnutrition crisis in India, according to a World Bank report. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa, the report says. It also observes that malnutrition in India is a concentrated phenomenon. A relatively small number of states, districts, and villages account for a large share of the burden – 5 states and 50 percent of villages account for about 80 percent of the malnutrition cases.
“Despite experiencing unprecedented economic growth during the last decade, South Asia, including India, has the highest rates of malnutrition and the largest numbers of undernourished in the world,” it said.
Citing estimates by the World Health Organisation (WHO), it said about 49 per cent of the world’s underweight children, 34 per cent of the world’s stunted children and 46 per cent of the world’s wasted children, live in India.
The prevalence of malnutrition varies across states, demographic and socio-economic groups, with scheduled tribes and scheduled castes ranking highest among all. “Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand have the highest malnutrition rates,” it said, adding that even in urban areas, a third of the children are underweight.
“Over the past decade, progress in reducing malnutrition in India has been limited; in fact anaemia has increased,” the report said.
