VEDANTA KHUSHI: TIMES OF INDIA ARTICLE: HUNGRY FOR VOTES, BUT NO NETA TO FIX MALNUTRITION PROBLEM

Rema Nagarajan

15th April 2014

Politicians Call It A ‘Shame’, But Do Little To Cure Ills That Plague System

In January 2012, PM Manmohan Singh declared half of India’s children were malnourished and that was a national shame. Yet since then, not a single comprehensive national survey was conducted to determine the acuteness of the problem or measure progress, if any, of steps initiated to address malnutrition. Worse, the issue figures in a token manner in the election discourse of political parties and candidates.

The 2005-06 National Family Health Survey was the last one conducted and it found 48% of children suffered chronic malnourishment — of them, 20% acute malnourishment. The survey concluded that over half the women were anaemic and 36% underweight. The Global Hunger Index, released in October 2013, placed India among a group of countries with ‘alarming’ levels of hunger, figuring at the bottom of the heap, below China, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and several in sub-Saharan Africa.

Key interventions to boost nutrition levels include the targeted public distribution system (TPDS), Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and the school midday meal scheme (MDMS).

Despite increased food production and procurement for TDPS, food insecurity persists and is a chronic problem linked to poor delivery. The large number of ineligible or fake ration cards issued — a serious problem in some states, usually those that need TPDS the most — has caused huge leakages. The TPDS has glaring exclusion errors. About 20% of the estimated 90 crore eligible beneficiaries are denied subsidized grain as they have no ration card, while 20% of the not-poor do. TPDS remains restricted to wheat and rice that would alleviate hunger, but not address malnutrition. No recommendation to include pulses, oil and nutritious millets has been implemented. Even the food security Act — that UPA counts among its mega achievements — focuses on rice and wheat. Had the Act included higher procurement of millets, pulses, fruits and vegetables, it would have incentivised production of these, instead of just rice and wheat that are water-intensive crops.

ICDS was meant to counter malnutrition in children between 0 and 6 years and pregnant women. Government allocation, including states’ share, increased from over Rs 5,200 crore in 2007-08 to Rs 13,700 crore in 2013-14 and the number of anganwadi centres (AWCs) has increased from 10.1 lakh to 13.1 lakh in 2012-13.

Though almost 90% anganwadis are operational, the ICDS scheme reaches about 47% of eligible children, reported a CAG audit. Coverage in states varies from about 75% in Odisha to 18% in Bihar. Most AWCs lack infrastructure. In 2011-12, only 57% had drinking water on the premises, 47% had toilets and only 25% had a kitchen.

ICDS is meant to provide supplementary nutrition 300 days a year, or 25 days a month. But the number of days the programme worked ranged from 180-250, a CAG audit found. The audit revealed irregularities such as insufficient monitoring, suspected misappropriation of supplies, badly-trained anganwadi workers and shortfall in expenditure on supplementary nutrition, which meant lower per beneficiary expenditure. For a flagship programme that addresses a “national shame” the ICDS programme leaves much to be desired.

Allocation for the midday meal scheme is up from Rs 6,700 cr to over Rs 10,300 cr between 2007-08 and 2011-12. But many states aren’t meeting yearly targets of number of meals served. The scheme’s plagued by reports of children falling ill from eating poor quality or spoiled food. Many states are yet to achieve standards set to run it: constructing a kitchen shed, timely lifting of grains, proper food storage. Women employed as midday meal cooks remain underpaid.

While proportion of malnourished children has fallen since 2005-06, not only has the decline been slow, from 46% malnourished to about 33% by 2013, it’s been uneven with a few states and districts getting worse. But with poor tracking of the schemes’ implementation, or of the population’s nutritional status, no one seems sure if the situation has become any better or worse. And that’s the national shame.

HUNGER POLITICS | Aug 2012 | Modi quoted in interview blaming malnutrition in Gujarat on its “by and large vegetarian diet”. Because it’s a middle-class state, Gujarat is “more beauty conscious than health conscious”

Media reports laid bare the bluff: His contentions didn’t square with data whichever way it was spliced. Haryana, even more vegetarian than Gujarat, has better nutritional figures
NSSO data (2009-2010) showed poverty behind state’s poor nutritional indices .

SERVED DEATH | Scams plague the mid-day meal scheme. Last July 27 village children died in Bihar’s Chapra after having the meal. Nitish Kumar cried conspiracy – that they were poisoned. Fact was, there was no monitoring, and the principal ran a racket, serving kids substandard fare.

Vedanta CSR forms "Village Empowerment Committees" to combat malnutrition in India

One in every three malnourished child in the world lives in India. Isn't it alarming? Malnutrition limits development and the capacity to learn in children. It also costs lives: about 50 per cent of all childhood deaths are attributed to malnutrition. In India, around 46 per cent of all children below the age of three are too small for their age, and 47 per cent are underweight. Most of these children are severely malnourished.

The Anganwadi Project was started by the Government of India in 1975 with an aim to provide nutrition value to young children, and since then there has been an active participation by State Governments for strengthening and trying to make Anganwadi project successful. A time came when big corporates too started showing interest in joining this mission to eradicate malnutrition from India.

In 2007, Vedanta group companies joined hands with State Governments of Rajasthan and Orissa and now also with Chattisgarh to support Anganwadi Project. With a mission to provide nutrition value to under privileged children in the age group of 0-6 years, Vedanta group company, Hindustan Zinc, adopted 400 Anganwadi Centres in Rajasthan and Vedanta Aluminium adopted 400 in Orissa. With this adoption not only the nutrient supplements were corrected but Anganwadi Centres also received new utensils, water filters, medical kit, books, toys, and other necessary items, much to the needs of these centres. These Vedanta Anganwadi Centers now maintain data of each child, including the change in their height and weight.

Encouraged by the results Vedanta adopted another 600 Anganwadi in Rajasthan and another 600 in Orissa, enhancing the total number of Anganwadi adopted to 2,000, benefiting over 85,000 under privileged children living in deep rural areas.

Fascination is what catches the attention of these very young children. The teaching methodology is entirely through play way methods where the teacher teaches them through songs and rhymes, colourful pictorial books and toys. The parents of the children are also very happy as their children are being taught about health and hygiene, civic sense and their children from the Anganwadi Centers then move to formal schools.

In order to impress upon the sustainability, strengthening and monitoring system of Anganwadi Centres (Child Care Centres) adopted by Vedanta, the Company has decided to form "Village Empowerment Committees" in every village. At present 2,000 'Vedanta Bal Chetna Anganwadi Centres' are present in Rajasthan and Orissa. The Company has already formed 1578 'Village Empowerment Committees', 1000 in Orissa and 578 in Rajasthan, which have also started functioning.

There are in total 10 members in each committee, which include panchayat leaders, youth leaders, opinion makers, self-help-group members, integrated child development project field staff, elderly people, and also a representation from Vedanta Foundation. These committee members would meet once in a month and take stalk of situation. These Committees would also convince mothers to send their child regularly to the Anganwadi Centres, monitor the quality of nutrient being given to children, stock of the food grains, ensure children being given micronutrient syrup, maintenance of record of every child, and liaison with local administration for immunization program.

Vedanta group has the target to eradicate malnutrition in at least 500,000 under-privileged children through adoption of 10,000 Anganwadi Centres in the coming 2-3 years. At present, all these Anganwadi Centres operate under the umbrella of "Vedanta Bal Chetna Anganwadi Centres".

In Chattisgarh, Vedanta group company BALCO runs 537 'MAMTA' centres in 500 villages, primarily for the mother and child care. These centres take care of all aspects of mother and child care, right from educating them about social taboos to health and medical benefits. The consistent efforts has brought down Infant Mortality Rate from 85 to 42 per 1000 and Mother Mortality Rate from 115 to 60 per 1000, in the region.

Malnutrition in early childhood has serious, long-term consequences. Malnourished children are less likely to perform well in school and more likely to grow into malnourished adults, at greater risk of disease and early death.

Unicef report also says, in 2007, an estimated 9.2 million children worldwide under the age of five died from largely preventable causes. Some are directly caused by illness such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria. Others are caused by indirect causes including conflict and HIV/AIDS. Malnutrition, poor hygiene and lack of access to safe water and adequate sanitation contribute to more than half of these deaths. Two thirds of both neonatal and young child deaths — over 6 million deaths every year — are preventable. Half a million women die in pregnancy each year, most during delivery or in the first few days thereafter.

Mr. Anil Agarwal, Chairman, Vedanta Group says, "I want to see India as a child malnutrition free country. The Vedanta group is working towards complete eradication of malnutrition from this country. A very high percentage of Children in India are under-nourished and suffer due to malnutrition and children are under-weight.

Children are wealth of any nation and also future of Indian growth story. We need to ensure their childhood is healthy and well nourished and they get proper education."

In Vedanta Bal Chetna Anganwadi Centres, the children greet every visitor with ‘good morning’, have every day bath, brush their teeth, cut their nails, comb their hair, and wear clean clothes. One can feel the inner happiness in these children.

Vedanta has developed a successful model for combating malnutrition in India. All it needs now is to be replicated by other corporate.