Exclusive: Number of severely malnourished children increased by 700 % in Delhi

New Delhi: In a developing country like India, the problem of malnourished children must get proper attention which, it seems, is not getting at present. From January 2015 to December 2015, the number of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) children registered in Anganwadi Centers (AWCs) of Delhi has gone up from 137 to 960, reveals an RTI query filed by Child Rights and You (CRY). If we talk about in terms of percentage, it is more than, alarming, 700 per cent. The things get even more serious when we are talking about the national capital of the country. It is pertinent to mention here that almost both the sexes are almost equally severely malnourished with the number of male children standing at 476 and females 484.

In order to know why there is a sharp rise in the cases of malnourished children in Delhi in the year 2015, Anurag Kumar of ABP Live has an exclusive conversation with Ms Jaya Singh, AGM CRY (a non-profit organisation working in India for the benefit of children). Image: Ms Jaya Singh, AGM CRY/ABP Live-Anurag Kumar. 09/09/2016 "Even this is under-reported. The actual figure is even higher than this. There is still a huge gap between our figures and the figures of the government. The lower level government workers forward very less data from which the government actually makes the report," she said. "However, in recent times, there has been an improvement in the reporting pattern of the government employees too because of which many cases of malnourished children have come to light. It does not mean that there were less malnourished children in the past. It only means that the pattern of reporting of such children has improved in the government machinery", CRY AGM said. On being asked why children are getting malnourished, she said-"Well, in Delhi-NCR, there are a lot of unorganized sectors. People come here to work and as a lady becomes the mother she (because she is working) can't give much-needed attention to the child which in turn result in faulty feeding practices and hence malnutrition." "Another reason why SAM children are on the rise in Delhi is no colostrum feeding. When a baby is born first milk which he/she should get is from the mother but on the contrary, we are feeding the kid with bottle milk and it is a very important reason why children getting malnourished," she elaborated. When a child gets born there must be breastfeeding for next six months, she added. In other words, we need to work on Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices. Poverty is another but obvious issue, she pointed out. It is pertinent to mention here that malnutrition can be measured through age, weight, and height. If weight and height of a child are below the standard criteria prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) then it is regarded that the child is malnourished. Anganwadi Centers (AWCs) play an important role in the identification of such children. Interestingly, there could be even more several acute malnourished children in Delhi-NCR as it is learned that there are a lot of pressure on the AWCs not to report the cases of SAM. In order to tackle the problem of SAM children, eight Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres (NRCs) are established with one more about to come in the national capital, reveals another RTI. NRCs are the centers where AWCs have to refer the cases of SAM kids. Plus, individuals can also directly take their kids to these NRCs if they think their kid is in need of nutrition. However, commenting on the condition of NRCs, Ms Singh said, "In my view, there are no proper NRCs in Delhi-NCR." Most of the centers were attached with the hospitals which shouldn't be the case, she said and added that NRCs should be a different setup altogether. The list of Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres are as follow (all attached with hospitals): Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital, Maharishi Valmiki Hospital, Deen Dayal Upathaya Hospital, Swami Dayanand Hospital, Guru Gobind Hospital, Kasturba Hospital, Hindu Rao Hospital and Kalawati Saran Hospital Ms Singh's observation seems to be correct as first four NRCs are only partially functional, reveals RTI. Under such circumstances, how government will work to bring down the number of malnourished children, only the time will tell.