Number of Underweight Children in BMC Schools and Anganwadis Reduces by 84% in 1 Year; Praja Foundation Smells a Rat
The report was compiled after an RTI filed by the NGO, which showed that the number of underweight children had reduced from 73,112 children in 2016-2017 to 11,720 in 2017-2018.
Mumbai, October 2016: The latest report on nutrition by Praja a non-governmental agency has raised several questions on children’s health in government-run schools and anganwadis. The report was compiled after an RTI filed by the NGO, which showed that the number of underweight children had reduced from 73,112 children in 2016-2017 to 11,720 in 2017-2018. The significant reduction – a staggering 84 percent – in the number of underweight students in such a short span of time has been questioned by Praja. More than 2.3 lakh students were screened for the report.
Nitai Mehta, the trustee of Praja noted that the sudden dip in the number of underweight students is a huge discrepancy. “When we see Integrated Child Development System (ICDS) data recorded by the state government, underweight cases have remained at a consistent 18 percent of the total children aged less than six.” He added that it’s not likely to achieve such a huge reduction in such a short span. World Food Day 2018: India Ranks 103 on Global Hunger Index.
The fault could lie in the measures used by BMC to calculate the child’s nutrition. State governments use weight to age formula, whereas BMC measures children through weight for heigh formula. Assistant health officer of BMC schools Dr Dakshayani V Menon accepted that the figures have reduced but doesn’t know why. Micronutrient Deficiencies That Indians Commonly Face.
According to data procured by Praja, 37 percent of children from standard one to five were underweight between 2015 and 2017, but between 2017 and 2018, only five percent of the students are underweight.
Here are the official tweets by Praja:
Project director at Praja Milind Mhaske told The Indian Express that BMC doesn’t screen children in kindergarten for their weight, despite the fact that undernutrition should be tackled at an early age. He added that despite this, no health check-up is done at the crucial phase.
Praja foundation also states that the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MGCM) has offered no clarification why the word ‘malnutrition’ with ‘underweight’ as an indicator in the School Health Department’s report. The director of Praja Foundation told The Hindu that this was one of the unexplained changes adopted by the corporation that seems questionable. The MGCM should ideally answer why.
“Secondly, if the underweight cases have dropped by 84 per cent, how they have achieved this," he said.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 16, 2018 03:25 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).