Children in Anganwadis in the state suffer from severe malnutrition is a well-known fact. But a shocker is that malnutrition is rampant even among kids who stay home or attend private crèches.
At least 21,000 out-of-Anganwadi children (0 to 6 years) were found to be severely malnourished during a health survey conducted by the Women and Child Development department last July.
The health camp for children not covered under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme was carried out following a High Court direction and turned out to be an eye-opener. P. Hemalata, director, Directorate of Women and Child Development, said, “During the health camp, we examined 13 lakh out-of-Anganwadi children and identified 21,000 severely malnourished children. We are now enrolling these children into Anganwadis to ensure their proper care and nutrition under ICDS.”
Tackling malnutrition remains a big challenge in the state, which has identified 61,000 severely malnourished children across its 61,164 anganwadis centers (AWC), where 39 lakh children are enrolled. The department now hopes to fight malnutrition by bringing all the malnourished children under ICDS care and to extend healthcare schemes like Balsanjeevini.
“We will conduct health camps for non-ICDS children once every three months to identify new cases of malnutrition and to follow up old cases. The malnourished children will be referred to nutritional rehabilitation centers (NRCs) set up across 12 district hospitals and monitored online too,” explained Dr R. Muni Reddy, joint director, ICDS.