By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.netÂ
Bhopal, June 01 : Despite having spent millions of rupees on child healthcare under Reproduction and Child Health (RCH)-II schemes, the Madhya Pradesh Government is way below other States in checking malnutrition. The State had witnessed an increase of 6.3 per cent.
According to the National Family Health Survey-III, owing to dearth of nutritious food, health facilities and family food insecurity, the percentage of malnutrition (underweight) increased from 54 per cent to 60.3 per cent.
The survey has revealed that only 14 per cent children under the age of 3 years were breast-fed within one hour of birth and 82.6 per cent including 75.2 per cent urban and 84.9 percent rural children between the age of 6-35 months.
Experts believe that 0-3 years is the most crucial period of a child's life for his mental and physical development.
The State claimed that the ratio of under-nourishment has come down to somewhere around 49 per cent, however, the ground realities depicts a different picture.
The condition is so miserable in the rural and tribal dominated areas that all the efforts made by the Madhya Pradesh Government to implement the scheme go futile owing to absence of basic infrastructure and transport facility.
The survey also revealed that malnutrition condition was very grave in different tribal and remote areas however, malnutrition status had decreased in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh by seven, ten and five percent respectively.
Apparently the food security and health rights for children have never been considered issue of mainstream development in the State.
The percentage of children in the age of 12-35 months, who received vitamin A dose in last 6 months, is just 14.6 per cent in rural and tribal areas while 21.0 per cent in urban areas.