Odisha improves child and mental health faster; UP, Bihar lag behind

In Odisha, stunting--low height for age and a sign of malnutrition--reduced from 46.5% of children below five years in 2005-06 to 35.3% in 2015-16.

Odisha, one of India's poorest states, has made significant progress in reducing child undernutrition—less than India as a whole, but more than other poor states, such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, according to government data studied by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

In Odisha, stunting--low height for age and a sign of malnutrition--reduced from 46.5% of children below five years in 2005-06 to 35.3% in 2015-16; the proportion of underweight children decreased from 42.3% of children below five years to 35.8%; and the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), the government’s child nutrition and education program, reached 34% more people in 2017 than it had in 2014.

As National Nutrition Week gets under way on September 1, 2019, and the Indian government prepares to launch Poshan Abhiyaan with an aim to improve nutrition among children, pregnant women and lactating mothers and make India malnutrition-free by 2022, we examine the success of Odisha. IFPRI, a research advocacy based in Washington D.C., studied the progress of several countries and 28 Indian states, identifying Odisha as a "nutrition champion", along with Thailand, Brazil, Bangladesh, Nepal, Peru, Vietnam and Ethiopia.

Odisha performed better than other poorer states

India’s ICDS programme is the world’s largest nutrition programme, launched in 1975 to address health, nutrition and pre-school education of children under the age of six years. The programme operates through a network of anganwadi centres that provide services for pregnant and lactating women, and for children aged six months to six years. The programme mandates one anganwadi per village or for a population of 1,000.

Odisha’s performance on delivering health and education services to children and mothers through this programme was among the best in India and got progressively better between 1992 and 2014, found a study, part of a book, ‘Nourishing millions: Stories of Change in Nutrition’, published by IFPRI.

“Odisha has demonstrated significant commitment to reducing undernutrition, expanded nationally sponsored nutrition-specific programmes, and launched state-led initiatives relevant to improving nutrition,” said Rasmi Avula, research fellow at IFPRI. Odisha also decentralised service delivery through self-help groups and focused on equitable access to interventions for the entire population, she explained.

The study on India, India’s Integrated Child Development Services programme; equity and extent of coverage in 2006 and 2016, and part of the book, was co-authored by researchers at IFPRI and the University of Washington, US, using data from three rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and the Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC).