Mumbai’s high malnutrition figures are despite the fact that 83% of government and aided schools in Mumbai city and 95.1% in its suburbs have a midday meal programme.
Mumbai’s Colaba is well known for its art deco buildings, the Gateway of India, swish pubs and restaurants, and the pleasant promenade of Marine Drive. It houses the state assembly, Vidhan Bhavan, and the state secretariat, Mantralaya.
However, this high-profile ward recorded the third highest incidence of malnourishment (69%) among government school children in Mumbai in 2015-16, according to a report by the non-profit Praja Foundation, which IndiaSpend wrote about in this June 1, 2017, story.
Praja also found that malnutrition has increased four-fold among children in Mumbai’s municipal schools, from 8% in 2013-14 to 34% in 2015-16, even as a large portion of the budget for the mid-day meal programme has been left unutilized.
How can such a dire situation exist in the city that generates more money than any other in India, ranking 17th among the 20 richest cities of the world? In this two-part series, IndiaSpend seeks to answer this question. This story takes a deep dive into the data and also visits some of Mumbai’s poorest localities to explore the extent of the problem.
The next part will examine the unique challenges that the urban poor face, focusing on how children, in particular, suffer, and exploring the interventions that can help.
Highrises and slums
Slums are not easy to spot in Colaba, where real estate prices go up to Rs 1,00,000 per square foot. However, towards the tapering edge of the island city, bordering the defence forces’ area of Navy Nagar, lies Geeta Nagar. Between the ramshackle houses, one can glimpse the sea, and the high tide brings seawater into people’s homes.
The Geeta Nagar settlement came up in the 1960s when workers building the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research settled here. With a population of 6,000 today, it is not as populated and deficient in resources as other informal slum settlements in Mumbai.
“Most of the community here is of migrants from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Most mothers work as domestic help in homes nearby and fathers work as security men or drivers,” Velankani Joseph, a social worker who lives here and works for the Fourth Jesus and Mother Convent, a school, told IndiaSpend. “Since mothers can cook only one meal [at home] in a day, the kids here eat biscuits, chips and fried snacks between meals.”
As many as 49% boys and 59% girls were malnourished in Colaba Ward, in which Geeta Nagar lies, in 2015-16, according the Praja Foundation report cited above. The total number of malnourished children rose from 244 in 2014-15 to 2,768 in 2015-16, the report found.
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