A day after the Prime Minister released a report on Hunger and Malnutrition (HUNGaMA) and raised his concern over the problem of malnutrition in the country, minister for women and child development (WCD) Krishna Tirath said that report needs to be validated with the National Health Survey.

“We take a sincere note of the report but we cannot ignore other factors like water, sanitation, health education etc. responsible for this menace. Even as the report suggests declining level of malnutrition, it requires further validation,” she said.
Ms Tirath also said that to overcome the problem, the ministry plans to “restructure” Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), for which it has proposed a four-time enhancement in allocation of funds from the finance ministry for adding infrastructure, additional workers, establishing day care centres etc.
“We have asked for `2 lakh crores for ICDS for the next five years. The proposal is expected to be cleared by the expenditure and finance committee soon,” a senior official in the ministry said, adding that the ministry has also proposed to convert the existing ICDS to “mission mode” from the existing “norm-based” scheme.
“Conversion of the scheme into the mission mode like NRHM will help making faster decisions.”