The Child in India

Context: Successful inputs related to child welfare are not reflected in their outcomes as shown by National Family Health Survey – 5.

Indicators related to child’s health and nutrition: 42 indicators of NFHS are divided into inputs and outcomes.

• Inputs: Includes post-natal care indicators relating to visits made by health workers, the provision of vaccinations and Vitamin A, and the extent and nature of feeding for the child.
• Outcomes: Includes neonatal, infant and under-5 mortality rates, nutrition indicators like stunting, wastage, excess wastage, underweight and overweight, the prevalence of diarrhoea, Acute Respiratory Illness (ARI) and anaemia.

Inputs related to Child in India: Government was successful in providing the inputs such as toilets, clean cooking fuel, power and bank accounts.

Outcomes related to child in India: as highlighted in the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5)

• Positive outcomes:
  • Child wasting (weight for height of children):  reversal of negative trend between 2005 and 2015.
  • Underweight: Marginal gains, but a slowdown relative to the past.
  • Improvements in child mortality: albeit slowed down - Between 2005-15, the infant mortality rate came down by nearly two percentage points per year, between 2015-19, it came down to 1 percentage point per year.
• Outcomes that have deteriorated:  health and nutrition indicators.
  • The health (anaemia, diarrhoea, and acute respiratory illness (ARI)) and nutrition (stunting and overweight) of the child deteriorated between 2015 and 2019.

Reasons for the deteriorating outcomes:

• Lack of implementation capacity: of individual states.
• Sector-specific factors: like changing diets.
• Macro-economic growth environment: This determines employment, incomes and opportunities.
• Failure to convert successful inputs: into favourable outcomes.

Conclusion: New Welfarism of the government should be based on a mission-mode focus on the well-being of the early child and mother, from the womb to the first five years, critical for the development of an individual.