Nagpur: “Over 33 lakh children in India are malnourished and more than half of them fall in the severely malnourished category,” ministry of Women and Child Development stated while responding to an RTI query.
According to the ministry, as per the data on October 14, there were 17,76,902 ‘severely acute’ malnourished children and 15,46,420 ‘moderately acute’ malnourished children in India. The total of 33.23 lakh is a compilation of data from 34 states and union territories, according to PTI citing the ministry’s response. These numbers were registered on the Poshan tracker application, which was developed last year as a governance tool for monitoring nutritional outcomes.
According to the report, Maharashtra topped the list with 6,16,772 cases of malnourished children, followed by Bihar with 4,75,824 cases and Gujarat with 3,20,465 cases. Andhra Pradesh recorded 2,67,228 cases, Karnataka with 2,49,463 cases and Uttar Pradesh with 1,86,640 cases.
There has been a 91 per cent increase in the rise of severely acute malnourished children between November 2020 (9,27,606) and October 14 2021. PTI adds that the two numbers collected are based on different methods of data collection—last year’s figures are based on state government’s data which was passed on to the Centre and this year’s numbers were directly entered into the Poshan tracker application.
The Poshan Tracker app was developed by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development to track all anganwadi centres and their beneficiaries.
