The common perception about malnutrition in India being primarily a lack of food issue has been straightened out by the recent World Bank findings which state that lack of a central policy for food dissemination and low focus on quality have been instrumental in India lacking behind some sub Saharan African nations on the prevalence of underweight children.
Malnutrition in children is also as rampant because of inappropriate primary care facilities, high predisposition towards infection, and lacking in feeding and care, in the first few years of a child. This puts children in India, particularly from the economically marginalized classes, at the greatest risk of having to bear long-term malnutrition consequences.
India's central, and the most comprehensive policy response to child malnutrition, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), has not been as effective in controlling child malnutrition due to a number of reasons.
Firstly, the deployment for targeting greater mass coverage and the core focus of the program being children above three years of age have rendered the ICDS widely unyielding. Children under two years of age have been proven the most vulnerable, but this group is not what the ICDS is particularly aimed at.
Demographic and socioeconomic variables also play an important role, but as per the World Bank, greater damage is being caused by a lack of established food supply system and quality control. India produces enough food for its internal consumption, but is unable to feed its poor because of an imbalance between supply and production.
The Ponty Chadha Foundation has been drawing the nation’s attention on this front through its various initiatives directed at plugging the supply chain gaps. Its pilot food banking project in Delhi NCR has been acknowledged by the India Food Banking Network (IFBN) for being a charity-driven food chain that procures food directly from government funded agencies and ensures it gets delivered the quickest to the needy in Noida and Ghaziabad.
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