Allocation of funds to POSHAN Abhiyan, India’s ambitious initiative to tackle malnutrition among women and children, suffered a drastic cut during the last two years as the COVID-19 pandemic raged. And utilisation of funds dropped as well.
In 2020-21, all anganwadis, women and child development centres that serve as primary locations for implementation of POSHAN Abhiyan, were closed because of the COVID-19 restrictions. Instead of the beneficiaries coming to these centres, angawandi workers were asked to distribute supplementary nutrition material at their doorsteps.
Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani informed the Rajya Sabha this week that in 2020-21, funds released for the programme were cut by a massive 85 percent compared to the amount released in the previous financial year.
Actual fund utilisation under POSHAN Abhiyaan has anyway been below par at just about 56 percent since the scheme was launched in 2018. Now, a parliamentary standing committee examining the demand for grants of the women and child development ministry has also flagged the “gross underutilisation” of funds allocated to POSHAN Abhiyan and asked the ministry to change its approach from “outlays to outcomes.”
“The Committee recommends that in view of the gross under-utilisation of funds under important schemes like POSHAN Abhiyaan, Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao etc, the benefits often do not reach the beneficiaries and therefore, the ministry should utilise the funds allocated under various heads to the fullest extent and strive to achieve results at the grass-root level. The outlook of the ministry needs to change from outlays to outcomes and the ministry should be able to spend, execute and give measurable outcome-driven results, in the upcoming Financial Year,” the panel said in a report
‘Holistic Nutrition’
POSHAN Abhiyan is the government’s flagship nutrition programme. POSHAN is an acronym for the Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition. It aims to improve nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers. It strives to reduce the levels of stunting, undernutrition, anaemia and low birth weight and address the problem of malnutrition in a mission mode.
According to Irani, only Rs 26,962 crore were released under POSHAN Abhiyan in FY 2021, against over Rs 1.84 lakh crore in FY 2020. The total funds allocated to this scheme until March 31, 2021 were a little over Rs 5.31 lakh crore. Of this, just about Rs 2.98 lakh crore had been used.
The startling decline in both allocation of funds to aid nutrition and their utilisation has taken place even as the latest health data paints a distressing picture about across-the-board anaemia and severe wasting in young children.
The National Family Health Survey 5 (NFHS5) shows that among all age groups, the biggest increase in anaemia was seen in children aged up to five years. In 2019-21, at an all-India level, more than two in three children in this age bracket were found to be anaemic versus 58.6 percent in 2015-16.
Nearly six in 10 women aged 15-19 years were found to be anaemic, up from 54.1 percent earlier; at least every second pregnant woman was anaemic (52.2 percent now versus 50.2 percent in 2015-16). Anaemia refers to deficiency of haemoglobin, resulting in fatigue and pallor.
Stunting and wasting
Unlike in anaemia, the country has seen improvement in two other nutrition indicators for children aged under five years -- stunting and wasting -- in NFHS5 over NFHS4.
At an all-India level, stunting has reduced from 38.4 percent to 35.5 percent, wasting has reduced from 21 percent to 19.3 percent and prevalence of underweight children has reduced from 35.8 percent to 32.1 percent.
But these figures mean that at least every third child below five is still stunted and underweight. Also, the proportion of severely wasted children has increased marginally, to 7.7 percent from 7/5 percent earlier. Stunting refers to lower than expected height for age while wasting shows lower than expected weight for height.
And, a state-wise analysis shows that in some states, the nutritional parameters for children are worse than the national average. The largest proportion of stunted children as well as children who are wasted continues to be in Bihar. Nearly 43 percent children in the state are stunted now though this is an improvement over 48.3 percent seen in 2015-16.
Over 40 percent are also wasted in the state and this is a statistic of concern since in 2015-16, only about 20 percent were wasted. In both, Gujarat and Maharashtra, every fourth child is still underweight.
Dipa Sinha, an assistant professor of economics at Ambedkar University who is also associated with the Right to Food Campaign (RFC), had said earlier that even the improved nutrition indicators in some categories of women and children as per NFHS5 were no cause for celebration.
“The target under the government’s POSHAN Abhiyan was to reduce stunting by two percentage points per annum. That has clearly not happened. Even the pace of reduction seen in NFHS5 has slowed down compared to NFHS 3 and NFHS4,” Sinha said.
The target under POSHAN Abhiyan was for India to become free of malnutrition by 2022. The latest health data and spending anomalies indicate this is unlikely to be achieved.
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