At a recent campaign meeting, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi attacked the Opposition-ruled Madhya Pradesh Government over its claims of providing good governance.
She said: “There were only talks of development in Madhya Pradesh but many children died of malnutrition. Crimes against women have increased and farmers have committed suicide. There is lack of doctors in hospitals because of which proper treatment is not given to the people.”
let’s look at the data: Malnutrition among urban, rural and tribal children is the highest in MP at 60% of the State’s child population, crime against women has increased steadily since 2008 and the State is among the top 5 in the country in absolute numbers as well as per 100,000 women. MP accounts for 10% of farmer suicides in the country and 12% shortfall in doctors at primary health centres (PHCs) and 9% shortfall of specialists in community health centres – among the poorest in the country.
Gandhi’s statement of children dying in MP due to malnutrition might sound subjective as there are no numbers found for year-wise deaths.
More than 50% of MP’s urban children suffer from malnutrition while 71% of tribal children are underweight. If you compare all-India numbers, MP accounts for almost 17% more underweight children.
MP has a child population (0-6 years) of 10 million and around 6 million of them are underweight. Incidentally, Madhya Pradesh has the maximum number of under-5 mortality rate in India at 89 per 1,000 live births.
Cases registered for crimes against women in MP have also seen an increasing trend since 2008. Incidentally, MP, which has a women population of 30.5 million, is among the top 5 States in crimes against women. The State had 48 registered crimes against women per 100,000 women.
Gandhi also said that many farmers in MP have committed suicide. Nearly 10% of farmer suicides in 2011 took place in Madhya Pradesh, and the State ranks among the top 5 States on farmer suicides.
India, with a population of 1.2 billion, can achieve the global doctor-population ratio of 1:1000 only by 2031. Against this backdrop, let’s see MP’s shortage of doctors compared with other states as of 2011MP has a doctor shortfall of 345, around 12% of the national shortfall, at its primary health centres as of 2011. MP has specialists’ shortfall of 1,105, around 9% of the national figure, in community health centres.
Here also we see that MP ranks among the top 5 States which lack doctors in basic infrastructure meant for providing healthcare to the public.