Malnourished kids to get higher dietary intake

Malnourished children in the country will get a higher dose of dietary intake with the Women and Child Development Ministry joining hands with the World Bank for initiating this project.

The project that aims at improving the quality of nutrition given to children will increase the dietary intake of severely malnourished children by 50 <g data-gr-id="29">per cent</g> while the normal malnourished will get 30 <g data-gr-id="30">per cent</g> higher dose of nutrition. "Children are classified as normal malnourished and severely malnourished on the basis of certain health parameters ascertained during their regular check-ups by the nurses or ASHA workers. Children who are normal malnourished will be given 30 <g data-gr-id="31">per cent</g> higher dose of nutrition and those who are severely malnourished will get 50 <g data-gr-id="32">per cent</g> more," a senior Ministry official told a news agency.

There are about 162 districts with high extent of malnourishment in children.

The programme will be implemented through the ministry's ongoing Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) which provides supplementary nutrition to children under 6 besides pregnant and lactating mothers, and which takes about 85 per cent of the its resources.

India still has the highest number of underweight children under five in the world. The government will have 25 <g data-gr-id="21">per cent</g> share in the project while the rest will be financed by the World Bank in the form of <g data-gr-id="25">soft</g> loan, the official said.

"It is a World <g data-gr-id="20">Bank funded</g> project with which we want to improve the quality of dietary intake of malnourished children, that is providing better food and better nutrition,” he said.