Govt clueless to fight increasing anemia cases in J&K

Sameer Lone

Srinagar, January 21: The Jammu and Kashmir government has found itself on back-foot citing “lack of financial resources" to address the increasing rate of anemia that has seen a steep spike especially in women and children. 

The National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) for 2019-21 conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt of India, has shown an increase of 17 percent in the rate of anemia, across the age groups in J&K. 

The NFHS-5 survey reported the anemia percentage among children aged between 6-59 months was recorded at 72.7 percent while the percentage was only 53.8 percent in NFHS-4, 2015-16 report. 

The worrying figure has brought under scanner the services and functioning of the much hyped Directorate of Integrated Child Development Services, which is primarily concerned with the implementation of the schemes related to children in the age group of 0-6 years, adolescent girls as well as pregnant and lactating women. 

However, Mission Director ICDS, J&K, Rubina Kousar said she can’t comment about the NFHS survey since it has been done by a particular department but added she is “concerned about her targeted beneficiaries, which is eight lakh in number that makes around 6% of the total population of J&K.

“I cannot talk about J&K as a whole. I will talk about my target beneficiaries which are 8 lakh,” she said.

Kousar said they have gone for random checking of cases wherein they have found prevalence of anemia but for that she has roped Directorate of Health for providing medicines, testing etc. “We had organised certain camps but in the meantime Covid happened so we have stopped the services for one month,” she said.

Asked if the ICDS Directorate has any roadmap how to address the increasing anemia, she said they were organising camps at different levels to identify and test each registered beneficiary and severe symptomatic cases are referred to different health facilities.

When asked if apart from medicines, ICDS provides nutritional supplements as is done in many other states, the MD ICDS said, “No. We haven’t received Central Funding as of now. We only provide Rice to our beneficiaries and other stuff underlined in the guidelines. We have not gone beyond that,” she added.

It may be noted here that some states like Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh have launched specific State level nutrition programmes to address the increasing malnutrition among the targeted beneficiaries.

To a question, Rice is provided in which form… “Cooked rice. It is cooked in Anganwadi centers and given to beneficiaries. We have almost 25000 Anganwadi Centers in J&K,” said the MD ICDS.

To another question about the number of Anganwadi centers where the food is cooked and provided to beneficiaries, she wanted to email the questions on her official ID. But till late evening, despite a reminder, the ICDS MD didn’t send any answers to a number of questions emailed- to her.  The response will be updated  as and when received.

The Questions remain: How many Anganwadi Centers (AWC) in J&K have their own buildings?, Anganwadi centers with No Buildings and AWCs in rented buildings? The Nutritional Package, menu and the frequency of meals given to beneficiaries?

While the Mission Director ICDS cited financial crunch that forces them to “provide only rice” to their 8 lakh beneficiaries, a CDPO in one block of  Shopian District said they were providing “Channa pulao, Moong ki khichdi, Mattar pulaoo” in lunch and in the morning they provide “biscuits, eggs and Dalya” as per a menu they have prepared.

Asked if this menu was ensured on the ground when an example was cited or sticked to papers only, the CDPO said he would cross check and get back on it. But later he didn’t…

Over the last several years the ICDS employees like Anganwadi workers, helpers, even supervisors have been seen more on roads and less in their workstations. They have pending demands like hike in wages, regularisations etc.

Anemia happens when the number of healthy red blood cells in a human body is too low. Iron-deficiency anemia is the most common type of anemia.