Malnutrition remains a worry as Karnataka govt schemes miss target

The state government recently held a nutrition intervention programme for children with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) in Ballari.

Children underwent a residential treatment for a fortnight at the nutritional rehabilitation centre (NRC).

“Some children marginally gained 300-400 gm during the camp,” says Uma, an anganwadi worker from Ballari who took part in the programme. At the end, doctors asked parents to continue the diet at home, while anganwadi workers were asked to regularly monitor the progress.

A month later, very few are following the prescribed diet, Uma says.

“Parents were asked to feed sufficient vegetables and fruits. Majority are labourers struggling to find wages amid the pandemic. Not surprisingly, they have discontinued the nutrition plan,” she says.

Malnutrition continues to be a cause for worry in Karnataka, especially with anganwadis remaining closed due to Covid-19. Before the pandemic, anganwadis would provide hot meals for children and pregnant women.

Now, the government supplies grains, pulses, milk powder, etc to beneficiaries, a poor alternative to cooked meals. The government supplies ration through the integrated child development scheme, Mathrupoorna Yojane and Ksheera Bhagya.

Taking note of the crisis, the High Court had, earlier this year, reactivated a panel led by retired judge A N Venugopala Gowda, to oversee the government’s efforts to address malnutrition.

According to the national family health survey (NFHS-5)-2019, as much as 32.9% of children under five years of age in Karnataka are underweight for their age, 35.4% are stunted, 19.5% are wasted, while 8.4% are severely wasted.

Albeit government intervention, the situation on the ground continues to be grim, according to Anil D’Souza, executive director, Centre for Non-formal and Continuing Education, a Raichur-based NGO.

“In Manvi taluk alone, there are 78 SAM children, an increase from 63 a month ago,” he says, calling for immediate intervention.

Anganwadi workers and experts flag four broad concerns with the government’s approach: The ration isn’t reaching the beneficiaries, the quantity is inadequate, the government fails to take the socio-economic context into consideration and the funding remains insufficient.

The government is currently providing grains and pulses calculated gram-wise and per day.

“This quantity is inadequate and needs to be increased. Forget supplementing the nutrition we give, pregnant women tell us that the ration we give them is consumed by the whole family,” points out Eramma, joint secretary of anganwadi workers’ association.

Also, several government interventions are falling flat as they don’t consider the living conditions of families.

The government has recently distributed seeds of drumsticks and gooseberry plants to anganwadis and beneficiary families, to push consumption of local produce.

“Parents who rush out for daily wages every morning cannot nurture the plants for long,” Eramma adds.

Anganwadi workers have also been up in arms against the government over lack of funding for egg procurement, forcing the workers to pay for it out of their pockets.

As a result, children are not getting the prescribed number of eggs per month, further crippling the nutrition programme.

Public health expert Sylvia Karpagam says reopening anganwadis at the earliest is imperative to tackle malnutrition.

“The meals in anganwadis also need improvement. At present, it is heavily cereal-based (mostly rice). The meal has to include appropriate portion of pulses and other nutrients,” she says.