Is India winning the battle against malnutrition?
A comprehensive answer, for several reasons, would be yes. First, there is a downstream impact of economic growth and reduction in overall poverty numbers, most of which has happened in the last decade.
Second, it does appear that in many states of India, concerted and co-ordinated efforts by the Government are beginning to bear fruit. Also remember that most data on malnutrition goes back a decade.
Maharashtra is one example. It has reduced the number of underweight children and severe stunting sharply as compared to the national average.
A recent report by the Government, along with International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and UNICEF, titled "Comprehensive Nutrition Survey of Maharashtra", claims that ‘stunting and wasting’ children has come down by 15%.However, when you adjust for ageand size, the decline is 12.5% which is still quite a good performance.
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