Delhi kids malnourished

Around 66 per cent of children under six years in Delhi slums are malnourished, more than sub-Saharan Africa where the figure stands comparatively lower at 38 per cent, a survey released on Thursday said.

Updated on: May 6, 2010, 23:32:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Around 66 per cent of children under six years in Delhi slums are malnourished, more than sub-Saharan Africa where the figure stands comparatively lower at 38 per cent, a survey released on Thursday said.

“This is a dangerous trend and has major implications on how Delhi’s future citizens will develop,” said the report Situational Analysis of Young Children in Delhi.

The country’s malnourishment figure is around 40 per cent.

The study, based on a survey in 22 slum clusters in Delhi ,also said the number of malnourished children is higher at construction sites and among deprived, including Muslims and Scheduled Castes.

This is mainly because of poor health of mothers.

“Just 10 per cent of poor women are accessing the nutrition services under Integrated Child Development Scheme,” the report said, adding that the scheme covers just 10 per cent of the poor women.

Most women who work in unorganised sector do not get maternity leave and have to pay a huge price for staying home to take care of their child.

Even in the national capital, the birth registration rate in slums is less than 20 per cent and a large number of childbirths take place at home.

The report said vulnerable sections such as street children, beggars, children of sex workers, children of migrant labourers and poor disabled children are not covered under most government schemes.

“Delhi government spends a meagre Rs 550 per child per annum on promoting the health of children from poor communities,”
the report said.

Another area of distress highlighted in the report was the number of people below poverty line having doubled over the years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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