48% of undernourished children found in four states: Renuka

New Delhi, July 31 (UNI) The Government today said that 48 per cent of the total underweight children under three years in India live in the four states of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.

Stating this, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury said in a written reply that of them, 9.18 per cent live in Maharasthra, 20.56 per cent in Uttar Pradesh, 11.35 per cent in Bihar and 7.06 per cent in Rajasthan.

According to the National Family Health Survey-II (1998-99), the worst affected states were Madhya Pradesh with 55.1 per cent of children under three years of age who were underweight followed by Bihar (54.4 per cent), Orissa (54.4 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (51.7 per cent) and Rajasthan (50.6 per cent).

She told the Rajya Sabha that, however, overall malnutrition in children as also the proportion of underweight children in India was declining.

"The prevalence of underweight in children under 3 years in 1992-93 was 52 per cent (National Family Health Survey-I), while in 1998-99 it came down to 47 per cent (National Family Health Survey-II)," the Minister added.

She said in reply to supplementaries that as per a UNICEF report titled "Progress for Children, A Report Card on Nutrition, No 4 May 2006", 39.04 per cent of the underweight children in the world are from India. In Sub-Saharan Africa, as per the report, 28 per cent of the children are underweight.

Ms Chowdhury said the National Level data on undernourishment among children is compiled through the National Family Health Survey and work relating to NHFS-3 was underway at present. The findings were likely to be available by year-end.

One of the major interventions of the Government was to reduce malnutrition among children was the Integrated Child Development Services Scheme. By the end of the Ninth Plan, 5,652 projects and 7.58 lakh anganwadi centres were sanctioned by the Government, she said.

"Almost all these projects and anganwadi centres have become operational resulting in increase of beneficiaries of supplementary nutrition from 415.08 lakh on March 31, 2004 to 546.31 lakh on December 31, 2005. Similarly, beneficiaries of pre-school education has gone up from 204.38 lakh to 237.64 lakh during this period," the Minister told the House.

UNI SD MIR HS1346