UP: Allahabad HC Expresses Grave Concern Over Malnourished Children, Women

Lucknow: Voicing concern over a public interest litigation (PIL) alleging that the Uttar Pradesh government was not paying "proper attention" toward malnutrition cases among children and women, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Monday asked the state government to take immediate steps to tackle the problem and submit details in court by the next hearing, slated to be held after eight weeks.

A bench of Justice DK Upadhyay and Justice Subhash Vidyarthi passed the order on the PIL moved by Motilal Yadav, who has charged the state government for failing to provide adequate nutrition to malnourished children and women despite running various schemes that aim to curb malnutrition. There are gaps in their funding, said the petitioner.

“We also require the state that while filing the counter affidavit, the deficiency in the human resources, if any, to run various beneficial schemes shall also be brought to the notice of the court,” said the bench.

The bench has also asked the state government to list what steps it is taking to save children and women from malnutrition and asked it to place details of the schemes it has been running to meet challenges posed by problems related to malnourished children and women before it by the next hearing.

The judges further observed that there were malnourished children because of malnourished lactating mothers.

Commenting on the High Court's concern, Ramayan Yadav, Uttar Pradesh coordinator of Forum For Creche And Child Care Service (FORCES), an umbrella of NGOs advocating the rights of children under six, blamed the poor implementation processes, lack of effective monitoring and the silo approach of the government in tackling malnutrition for the rise in such cases in the state.

"No doubt, to prevent malnutrition, there are several schemes by both the Centre and State government, but the irony is that the schemes are not being implemented sincerely on the ground. According to government think-tank NITI Aayog’s ‘Multidimensional Poverty Index’, at least 10 districts of the state are in the category of extreme malnutrition, in which Shravasti, Bahraich and Balrampur, all in Uttar Pradesh, are three of the four poorest districts in India. The maternal infant mortality rate is also highest in Bahraich,” Yadav told NewsClick, adding that “our organisation has informed the state government about the condition of malnutrition from time to time and has also given some suggestions, but these were not implemented."

When asked what these suggestions were, Yadav said: "The anganwadi centres need to be restructured immediately. The government had earlier issued a circular that kitchen gardens should be developed at anganwadi centres and the vegetables grown there used for feeding children coming to these centres, but this was never implemented. Saplings of vegetables and fruit-bearing trees planted on the premises of anganwadi centres are overdue. Last but not the least, the biggest problem is that children are being deprived of proper nutrition as food distribution is not being done proportionally. Also, not giving cooked food at the centres and instead giving dry rations is also affecting child nutrition because the child's share of ration is distributed to all members of the household."

Though the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government has been claiming that it will eradicate malnutrition with the help of various schemes by 2024, the National Family Health Survey 2019-21 (NFHS-5), paints a grim picture of people’s health in the state.

The data on child malnutrition and anaemia shows that the state is failing its children.

As per the NFHS-5 (2019-21), in rural Uttar Pradesh, 41.3% of under-5 kids were stunted (low height for age), while 33.1% under-5 kids were underweight (low weight for age). Seventeen per cent rural under-5 kids in the state were categorised as wasted (weight for height), and 7.1% were severely wasted. This is an improvement from 2015-16 where, according to NFHS-4, rural areas of the state had 48.5% under-5 stunted kids; 41% underweight kids; 17.9% wasted kids; and 5.8% severely wasted.

Some experts said that hot meals have been stopped post-pandemic and dry rations are in ‘short supply’, which is the key reason behind the rise in malnutrition cases.

"According to the data collected, most of the cases of malnutrition in Uttar Pradesh are being reported from areas inhabited by Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and downtrodden families," Rajendra Singh, Gorakhpur district programme officer (child development), told NewsClick. "Most of these communities live in the outskirts of the village and are not covered adequately under the existing anganwadi centres," he added.