By Ashish Joshi
According to PK Joshi, the South Asia Director of IFPRI, there has been a huge uptick in investments to tackle undernourishment, but the results have been slow to come due to the structural deficiencies with the administration of the programs. Although Joshi expects the situation to dramatically improve in the near future, there can be no denial of the fact that such daunting statistics raise critical questions about the government of Indias efforts and capabilities in tackling this issue.
A plan for the way ahead
To address the issue and bring nutrition to the center-stage of national development, NITI Aayog has drafted a National Nutrition Strategy. After extensive consultation aimed at strategising a roadmap to effectively eradicate malnutrition from the country by the year 2030, the following targets were set:
- To reduce undernutrition in children (0- 3 years) by 3 percentage points per annum, according to the country’s ranking in the 2015/6 NFHS 4 report, by 2022.
- To reduce the prevalence of anemia among young children, adolescent girls and women in the reproductive age group (15- 49 years) by one third of the NFHS 4 levels by 2022.
The report also cites decentralised planning, local innovation and accountability as the key ingredients for success. The idea is to transfer the ownership of the program down to the level of Panchayats. Decentralisation will help formulate area-specific strategies, which will, in turn, help to address the regional problems with program delivery more effectively.
Key focus on children and mothers
The strategy focuses primarily on the most vulnerable people and critical age groups. In particular, the policy proposes to launch interventions to improve healthcare and nutrition among children. This includes programs to promote breastfeeding for the first six months after birth, universal access to infant and young child careincluding ICDS and crèches, providing enhanced care for sick and undernourished children, provisions to provide bi-annual critical nutrient supplements and programs aimed at de-worming children.
In the area of maternal care, the aim is to provide nutritional support to the mother both during pregnancy and the lactation period, in particular, to ensure the adequate consumption of iodised salt. They report also calls for parents to be provided with health and nutrition counselling. Another key target of the program is to maximise institutional childbirth and to ensure the availability of proper medical infrastructure at even the most rural level.
Vision 2022, Kuposhan Mukt Bharat
The National Nutrition Strategy is committed to ensuring that every child, adolescent girl and woman attains an optimal nutritional state so that they can realise their full social and economic potential, especially those from the most vulnerable communities. The focus is on reducing and preventing undernutrition across the entire life cycle, starting as early as possible.
Under the current roadmap, India aims to eliminate malnutrition by the year 2030. Whether the country succeeds or not is a question for the future. But considering the fact that India’s leadership sees nutrition and health as one of the most important aspects of its sustainable development program, and with realistic short-term targets in view, we can certainly expect the situation to improve.
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