For Odisha, this is a sort of tectonic revelation. Puri district, State headquarters' neighbour, surprisingly reveals a startling fact of sustaining as many undernourished children below five years as Malkangiri has.
Over one-third of children below five years in both the districts are malnourished. More disconcerting is Puri district dipping below Malkangiri with 24 per cent severely undernourished children below five years against 23 per cent in the latter. Deogarh with 34 per cent undernourished and 19 per cent severely malnourished children finished a close second to both in the State. These grimmer truths have been laid bare by the recently released 2014 Clinical, Anthropometric and Bio-chemical (CAB) Survey by the Census Office here.
As per the CAB-2014, the proportion of undernourished children below five years (as per Body Mass Index (BMI) for their age) in Puri district is a whopping 35 per cent, almost equivalent to that in Malkangiri. Significantly, the proportion of severely undernourished children below five years in BMI terms as per the WHO norms in Puri is 24 per cent. Interestingly, the CAB-2014 conducted by the Census office in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Odisha reveals that proportion of severely famished children (as per BMI for age) below 5 years in Puri district is higher than other significant pilgrimage districts like Ujjain, Deogarh, Ajmer, Gaya and Nalanda.
This would be an eye-opener for the State as it reflects the comparatively poorer income generation and prosperity affecting nutritional status in the Puri district despite having equivalent potential.
Even mines-rich district like Keonjhar has around one-fourth of below 5-year children famished, which is much higher when compared with its counterparts in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The state of impoverishment in Odisha could well be evidenced by the fact that Khordha district have around 20 per cent children below 5 years as famished compared to below 15 per cent in headquarters districts like Bhopal, Ranchi and below 10 per cent in Patna among others. Only Raipur district fares poorer.
However, Odisha as a whole has around 20 per cent children below 5 years of age malnourished and 9 per cent as severely malnourished is almost on par with MP and Bihar but better than Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, reveals the survey. CAB-2014 further reveals that the proportion of stunted or chronically undernourished children below 5-year in Odisha stood at 41 per cent, whereas wasted (weight for height criteria) or acutely undernourished children proportion stood at around 20 per cent. It seems the State has made a slow progress in bringing up an improved performance in 15 long years as NFHS - 2 had estimated below five years stunted and wasted children proportion in Odisha at 44 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively in 1999.
Another bombshell dropped by CAB-2014 is a whopping 71 per cent children in State in the age group of 6-59 months are anaemic. Significantly, in 1999 the proportion was around 72 per cent. The anaemic incidence shot up to 81 per cent for children in 5-9 years age-group. Though the State is ahead of other Empowered Action Group (EAG) States like Bihar, Jharkhand, MP, UP and Assam, it lagged behind Chhattisgarh.
