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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | India’s nutrition crisis has widened during the pandemic – especially for women and children -Deepanshu Mohan, Vanshika Shah and Advaita Singh

India’s nutrition crisis has widened during the pandemic – especially for women and children -Deepanshu Mohan, Vanshika Shah and Advaita Singh

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published Published on Jun 27, 2021   modified Modified on Jun 28, 2021

-Scroll.in

The focus is on providing food grains to the very poor as against supporting that with more funding for existing nutrition-focussed welfare programmes.

Data collated from a recent paper -studying the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 by Jean Dreze and Anmol Somanchi reflect the grim condition of India’s looming malnutrition crisis.

In a co-authored essay around April 2020, we had argued how the “hidden costs of this pandemic” (and the administrative response to it) is likely to be most evident in a) the psycho-social costs emerging from the decline in incomes, rising unemployment for India’s most vulnerable population, and b) the nutritional distribution chart amongst the low social, economic groups (worst impacting women and children).

Dreze and Somanchi’s work, alongside other recent empirical findings, provide evidence for both these “hidden costs” now, more so for the latter.

A disturbing situation in India’s paradoxical nutritional landscape, where obesity ails India’s ultra-rich upper-class residents and malnutrition makes those at the bottom of the pyramid suffer, has been evident from the pre-pandemic period as well.

Undernourished mothers

Numbers from the 4th National Family Health Survey indicate how 53.1% of all women age 15-49 are anaemic. An alarmingly high rate of undernourished mothers results in low-weight, poorly nourished babies and infants, whose in-utero lack of nutrition can have lifelong consequences for them and their families. Twenty one percent of all children under 5 years remain unproductive or wasted (with low weight-to-height), as per India’s child wasting statistics.

In 2017, having recognised the critical importance needed to support maternal health and childcare, the government of India launched the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana – a centrally sponsored conditional cash transfer scheme.

Under the scheme, pregnant women and lactating mothers are entitled to Rs 5,000 for their first live birth subject to fulfilling certain conditions. The cash incentive is paid in three instalments with the first Rs 1,000 being awarded on early registration of the pregnancy at an anganwadi centre (often with the help of an Accredited Social Health Activist or ASHA worker).

COVID warriors Anganwadi Workers are making regular home visits in hard to reach areas to avail the different services under ICDS, viz. counselling of mothers on #AntenatalCare, weighment of pregnant Pregnant woman women, #GrowthMonitoring of children and #IFAAdministration. pic.twitter.com/4SYK4uu66r

— Art of Giving (@artofgiving_net) June 18, 2021

Once the beneficiary receives at least one ante-natal check-up, they become eligible for the second instalment (of Rs 2,000). The Union government further complements this scheme with the Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan that offers free, universal antenatal care to all pregnant women. The final instalment (Rs 2,000) is paid after the birth and immunisation of the child. Between the fiscal years of 2018 and 2020, almost 1.75 core eligible beneficiaries were paid Rs 5,931.95 crores.

By tying the cash-transfer to conditions, the government hoped to incentivise mothers to engage in undertaking basic (self) maternal and childcare. Meanwhile, the money provided offers financial support for the soon-to-be-mothers to meet their nutritional requirements.

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Scroll.in, 27 June, 2021, https://scroll.in/article/998589/indias-nutrition-crisis-has-widened-during-the-pandemic-especially-for-women-and-children?fbclid=IwAR1r4GW7JywibmTPkV-ROIQxfbtfCP5pLLhqRvB0q1kNUL55oeWfzyY_1ME


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