Recently, Anganwadi workers conducted a survey, under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme, and they found 16,344 malnourished children. They surveyed 2,34,896 children, all under the age of 6 years, in the Mumbai Suburbs area in February 2025. These children belonged to economically underprivileged families. Based on this result, the Mumbai Suburban Guardian Minister Ashish Shelar ordered the district administration to develop a plan to adopt remedial measures in the next 10 days. Ashish Shelar met with the officials from the district collector’s office on April 3. He expressed his concern over the survey result and asked the officials to take up all the necessary steps immediately and provide them with good quality food.
Ashish Shelar said, “It is disheartening to know that children are suffering from malnutrition at such a large scale in a developed area like the Mumbai suburban district. We need to immediately take action on the issue. Submit the report in 10 days on the measures necessary to solve the problem.”
At this meeting, a decision was made to start urban child development centres across the Mumbai suburban areas.
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As per the survey report that was submitted to the state government on April 3, all the children were tested for height and weight. The survey also presented the number of children suffering from different kinds of malnutrition. It stated that 2,887 were found suffering from severe malnutrition and 13,457 were suffering from moderate malnutrition. 450 new cases of severe malnutrition and 407 cases of moderate malnutrition were reported for just the month of February 2025. The state government will now check the data. It asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) health department to conduct health-related drives. Under these drives, check-ups of children will be done, and when they submit the final list of malnourished children, this issue will be tabled before the government, reported Hindustan Times.
What Could Be The Reason Behind The Increase In Malnutrition?
Media reports suggest that price hikes of basic food and cooking materials, and unemployment could be among the factors that led to an increase in malnutrition among young children in big cities like Mumbai. These factors also cause expecting mothers to be underweight.