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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Inside Jharkhand's Singhbhum, the worst constituency in India -Ashwaq Masoodi

Inside Jharkhand's Singhbhum, the worst constituency in India -Ashwaq Masoodi

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published Published on Mar 27, 2019   modified Modified on Mar 27, 2019
-Livemint.com

* Nearly 67% children in Singhbhum are underweight, the highest in India. More than half are stunted and a third suffer from wasting

* In Jharkhand, malnutrition is still an alien concept, and the lack of drinking water, ration or electricity supercedes need for healthcare

Singhbhum: In the waiting room of a hospital ward in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district, Mukul Kalandiya is carefully holding something that from a distance looks like a featherless pale-skinned newborn bird. In her arms, wrapped in an old bed sheet, is her two-month-old daughter, Rohivari Kalandiya. Rohivari is frail and skeletal, her arms and legs broomstick-thin, and her eyes wide open. She is barely moving her limbs and if not for the heavy breathing, it is difficult to tell whether she is alive or not.

For a ward filled with over 20 children, the malnutrition treatment centre (MTC) is unusually quiet. The mothers are whispering among themselves or staring into the distance, and the children—from newborns to over five years of age—are so weak that they cannot even cry in pain.

There is six-year-old Sarita Jamuda, from Dharamsai village in the district, who looks not more than three. She has a hunched back, bowed legs, and deformed forearms. On the opposite bed is two-month-old Subni Sirka from Kolaisai village. The outlines of her ribs are visible, the forehead skin is cracked, and her head circumference is much larger than children her age.

These children with severe acute malnutrition are at nine times higher risk of dying of common childhood diseases than well-nourished children. And Jharkhand’s Singhbhum parliamentary constituency, which votes on 12 May 2019, is full of such children, barely surviving or on the verge of dying. Singhbhum, a predominantly tribal constituency, is perhaps India’s worst performer on child nutrition indicators.

Demographic nightmare

This dismal ranking is revealed in a report by a team of public health experts from Harvard University and Tata Trusts, who have begun to map India’s development indicators on to parliamentary constituencies for the first time. Nearly two-thirds of Singhbhum’s children (under the age of five) are underweight, the highest in the country. More than half are stunted (low height for age) and a third suffer from wasting (low weight for height).

The scientific consensus on the consequences has held steady for several decades now: a huge chunk of Singhbhum’s children are more likely to die younger (common cold is life threatening), and even if they somehow manage to survive, as adults, they will suffer disability, have impaired physical and cognitive development, and reduced performance levels at school and work.

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Livemint.com, 26 March, 2019, https://www.livemint.com/news/india/inside-jharkhand-s-singhbhum-the-worst-constituency-in-india-1553561625193.html


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