India has sustained its progress in reducing stunting and the number of underweight children in the last decade
The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) report, brought out recently by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, assumes salience, especially against two important factors. One, the latest Global Hunger Index (GHI), 2019 ranks India at the 102nd position out of 117 countries. Two, India’s past performance in reducing child undernutrition has been rather mixed: there was a moderate decline in stunting but not in wasting. Between 2005-06 and 2015-16, child stunting and the condition of being underweight declined by 10% and 7% points, respectively. In wasting, the decline was a paltry 1% point. These factors make the CNNS (2016-2018) report timely and important.
The report covers dimensions of nutrition, some of which are new and important, and thereby heralds a new beginning in collecting national level nutrition data. It reveals that India has sustained its progress made in reducing the number of stunted and underweight children in the last decade. Despite such sustained decline, the present stunting level still belongs to the threshold level of ‘very high’. Hence, what is of urgent requirement is increasing the rate of decline. Though there is no magic policy wand to reduce stunting drastically within a short span of time, the CNNS report draws our attention to an all too familiar factor, which has not received the necessary attention.
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