Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that funds for the nutrition of women and children was reduced
Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday said the children of the country are paying the price for the Narendra Modi dispensation's "incompetence" after government data showed that 33 lakh children in India are still malnourished.
Unplanned lockdown enforced by the Modi government made the Integrated Child Development Services Scheme (ICDS) and mid-day meals irregular, leading to a massive increase in malnourished children, he alleged.
In response to an RTI query, the Women and Child Development Ministry has said over 33 lakh children in India are malnourished and more than half of them fall in the severely malnourished category with Maharashtra, Bihar and Gujarat topping the list.
"RTI response from WCD Ministry says 33 lakh children in India are malnourished; 91 per cent rise in the number of severely acute malnourished children between November 2020 and October 2021. Will Smriti Irani disown the data that her ministry has given? Or will she accept her abject failure," the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha asked on Twitter.
He claimed that funds for the nutrition of women and children was reduced from Rs 3,700 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 2,700 crore in Budget 2021-22, a steep drop of 27 per cent.
"PM Modi kept claiming that 80 crore people are being fed daily through government measures, still India ranks 101st in Global Hunger Index behind Pakistan and Nepal. Children of India are paying the price for the incompetence of this regime," Mr Kharge said citing news reports.
Prompting concern that the Covid pandemic could exacerbate the health and nutrition crisis among the poorest of the poor, the Women and Child Development ministry estimates that there are 17,76,902 (17.76 lakh/1.7 million) severely acute malnourished children (SAM) and 15,46,420 (15.46 lakh/1.5 million) moderately acute malnourished (MAM) children as of October 14, 2021.
The total 33,23,322 (33.23 lakh/3.3 million) is a compilation of data from 34 states and union territories, the ministry said in response to an RTI query by PTI. The numbers were registered on the Poshan tracker app developed last year as a governance tool for real-time monitoring of nutritional outcomes.
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