New Delhi, April 4: A World Bank study has reported that 50 per cent of children in South Asia are undernourished. This is double the percentage of malnourished children in sub-Saharan Africa, a region steeped in poverty.

The report has set off alarm bells for the UPA government.

The report has clubbed India with Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, saying the rate of undernourishment here ranges between 38 per cent and 51 per cent.

According to Praful Patel, the World Bank president for South Asia: “Nearly half of India’s children are undernourished compared to 26 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa.”

The Centre is trying to strengthen the Integrated Child Development Scheme for checking malnourishment and maternal deaths. Simultaneously, the human resource development ministry is trying to expand and firm up the mid-day meal scheme which the government says has worked wonders.

Experts say the success of both, the child development and mid-day meal schemes, depends on the strategies the government adopts. There is no dearth of funds. The Centre’s contribution to child development has increased from Rs 329.8 crore in 1992-93 to Rs 1,311 crore in 2001-02.

The mid-day meal scheme, which has been acclaimed by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen as the biggest pro-poor initiative, now covers 12 crore children in 9.5 lakh schools.

But the results are way below expectations.

In India, maternal mortality rate stands at 407 for every 1000,000 births, which is comparable to the maternal mortality rate in Nepal and higher than the maternal mortality rate of 380 for every 1000,000 births in Bangladesh.

Experts say the child development scheme, a strategic intervention to check maternal mortality and improve nutritional health of children, should have made a substantive difference. The scheme depends on anganwadi workers who are the project’s foot soldiers, looking after supplementary feeding, immunisation and nutritional health.

According to experts, implementation flaws are dogging the programme.

For instance, the anganwadi workers are not highlighting enough the importance of breast-feeding an infant in its first six months.

The World Bank report points out that pregnant mothers have no time to take care of themselves and the children. There is a tendency on the part of the mothers to feed infants under six months food other than breast milk.

There is also not enough emphasis on giving infants semi-solid supplementary food in this period.

The child development scheme is instead using most of its resources to provide food. The beneficiaries of this food distribution are often those who are better off economically as they are the ones who turn up at the centres distributing food.