Friday, April 29, 2011

UP's dalit children malnourished: survey

LUCKNOW: More children in dalit families of UP could be malnourished, revealed a survey conducted by CRY and its partners, released here on Thursday. The survey was conducted across 200 odd villages in eight districts. "We found that 70% of the malnourished children in the sample hailed from scheduled caste group, while 18% of them belonged to the other backward classes," said Pankaj Mehta, manager programmes, CRY.

The survey showed that over 54% of children suffered from malnutrition. However, the latest National Family Health Survey revealed that 41.6% kids in the state reported subnormal body weight. To note, provisional census data released in March shows that UP's child population is more than 2.92 crore.

Malnourishment in children also reflected the quality of life their families lead. The survey has underscored that most of the families were financially crippled and lacked access to essential services such as potable water, electricity, toilets, health services, schools, security and sanitation. "About 96% of the families with children do not earn basic minimum wages," said Nasreen Rizvi, representing one of the partner NGOs.

Mehta said that the objective of the survey is to make a ground so that targeted schemes could be run for such families. 
 
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/UPs-dalit-children-malnourished-survey/articleshow/8112496.cms 

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