Malnourishment a major health crisis in Maharashtra’s Melghat region

As India celebrates the 75th year of its Independence, and amid talks of a rapidly developing economy, malnutrion forms a grim, bleak backdrop — as of November 2021, over 33 lakh children in India are malnourished. More than half fall in the severly malnourished category, as per data released by the Women and Child Development Ministry in response to an RTI query.

The ministry also said Maharashtra leads the list of states with the highest incidence of malnutrition. Over 6 lakh children fall under the malnourished category and of this number, 4.5 lakh fall under the Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) category.

The Maharashtra government has been under pressure from the Bombay High Court to improve nutrition and ensure there are no deaths due to malnutrition. Maharashtra government told the court that the situation has improved, but on the ground, reality paints a starkly different picture.

Fourteen-month old Manishi and her three-year old sister Vandana live in Maharashtra’s tribal belt of Melghat and according to the Indian government’s guidelines, both children are malnourished.

Manishi weighs just 6 kg, against a prescribed weight of 7 kg, and is considered to be suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Vandana officially falls under the moderate acute malnutrition category. Their mother Suganti tells CNBC-TV18 that access to basic food is a struggle. “I give them rice twice a day, they get some food from the Aganwadi”, she said.

Manishi and Vandana are just two among lakhs of children who suffer from malnutrition in Maharashtra.

The state has the highest incidence of malnutrition among India’s states and has told the Bombay High Court that 6,582 children have died of malnutrition between 2019 and April 2022. In its affidavit, filed in April 2022, the state government has admitted that the tally of children with severe acute malnutrition rose by over 26,000 in these 39 months, while over one lakh children were added to the category of moderate acute malnutrition.

The problem is not Maharashtra’s alone. According to the National Family Health Survey 2019-2021, there has been no significant improvement in health and nutritional status across India since 2015-2016; 7.7 percent of its children are severely wasted, 19.3 percent are wasted and 35.5 percent are stunted; 3.4 percent are overweight and 67.1 percent are anaemic. Across parameters, India’s situation has deteriorated.

The pandemic has been a major factor for this fall in standards and has put India at 101st of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2021, from 94th in 2020. Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and even war-torn Iraq rank higher.

Even central government schemes like Anganwadi, which serve nutritious meals to children up to the age of 6 years, and to expectant and nursing mothers, have not helped. During the pandemic, many Anganwadis closed down and in a few areas, beneficiaries received groceries instead of hot cooked meals. But even these were sporadic. Now, the scheme is coming online again but the damage done to children is not reversible overnight.

Anganwadi worker Geeta says, “We give eggs and other nutritious food to children, we maintain their record and take their weight every month.”

Experts say one big reason for deficient nutrition is a scarcity of funds. The government’s allocation towards child health schemes has risen just marginally from Rs 20,105 crore in budget 2021 to Rs 20,263 crore in budget 2022. This, of course, covers multiple schemes, and Anganwadi services are just one of them.

Even the budget allocation to the midday meal scheme that target school-going children has dipped from Rs 11,500 crore in 2021 to Rs 10,230 crore in 2022.

Bombay High Court is hearing multiple PILs regarding malnutrition deaths in Maharashtra. The court has pulled up state government and state machinery on several occasions. Recently, the court warned the state government that not even a single child should die of malnutrition in Maharashtra anymore. Later on, the state government informed the court that the situation is now under control but the claim is far from reality.

Activist Bandu Sampatrao Sane, a petitioner, says, “Over 50 children have died in Melghat between April-June this year. Lack of coordinated efforts make the situation more challenging. There should be regular visits from pediatricians and gynecologists.”

Melghat is just the tip of the iceberg. Even urban areas like Govandi and Mankhurd in Mumbai have reported a high number of malnourished children. A large number of these are associated with malnourishment among pregnant women, which is passed on to the infant. In response, the Maharashtra government has formulated guidelines to identify expectant mothers as soon as pregnancy is detected and enroll them for nutritional food supplements. But experts warn that reversing the effects from the pandemic-related disruption to these crucial schemes will be a long-drawn and painful process. CNBCTV18