The status of malnutrition, stunting, wasting, and underweight in the country amongst children under 5 years of age is provided by the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted periodically by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. The details of status of malnutrition at national level as per NFHS 4 & NFHS 5 are as follows:
| Indicators | NFHS-4 2015-16 (National level) | NFHS-5 2019-21 (National level) |
| Wasting | 21% | 19.3% |
| Stunting | 38.4% | 35.5% |
| Under-weight | 35.8% | 32.1% |
In order to improve nutritional outcomes in children, Government is implementing several schemes like Anganwadi Services, Scheme for Adolescent Girls and Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) under the Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme as direct targeted interventions. POSHAN Abhiyaan launched on 8th March 2018, aims to reduce malnutrition in the country in a phased manner, through a lifecycle approach, by adopting a synergised and result oriented approach.
Government has also taken measures to strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach and outcomes with focus on developing practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity to disease and malnutrition under Poshan 2.0, an integrated nutrition support programme which was announced in budget 2021-2022. Steps have also been taken to improve nutritional quality, strengthen delivery and leverage technology to improve governance under Poshan Tracker, a robust ICT platform, to improve governance with regard to real time monitoring of provisioning of supplementary nutrition for prompt supervisions and management of services. Government has advised States/UTs to ensure that the quality of supplementary nutrition conforms to prescribed standards laid down under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and regulations made thereunder. States/UTs have also been advised to promote use of AYUSH systems for prevention of malnutrition and related diseases. A programme to support development of Poshan Vatikas at Anganwadi centers to meet dietary diversity gap leveraging traditional knowledge in nutritional practices has also been taken up. Further, Streamlined Guidelines were issued on 13.01.2021 for transparency and accountability in delivery of supplementary nutrition and to track nutritional outcomes.
This information was given by the Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.
*****