2-Aug-2022: Role of National Family Health Survey (NFHS)

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) conducts one integrated survey namely National Family Health Survey (NFHS) at an interval of about 3 years and so far, completed five rounds of survey. NFHS provides high quality, reliable and comparable data on population dynamics and health indicators as well as data on emerging issues in health and family welfare and associated domains, so as to assist the policy-makers and programme implementing agencies for setting the benchmarks. NFHS also provides evidence on the effectiveness of ongoing programmes, which are implemented by the Government of India.

As per the fifth round of National Family Health Survey NFHS conducted by MoHFW during the year 2019-21, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has declined to 2.0 children per woman from 2.2 children per woman as per the fourth round of NFHS conducted during the year 2015-16, resulting in the achievement of the replacement level of fertility, which is 2.1 children per woman.

The progress of some of the key Health & Family Welfare Indicators as per NFHS-5 as compare to NFHS-4 are as follows:

22-Jul-2022: Update on NFHS-5 & Rural Health Statistics

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has released the National Report of the fifth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS), which is available on the public domain (http://rchiips.org/nfhs/).

The information on various important indicators captured in NFHS-5 are used for monitoring the SDG related health goals. India has made significant progress in various SDG health indicators like Total Fertility Rate (TFR), the proportion of pregnant women who had an ANC visit in the first trimester, Institutional Births, Child immunization, etc.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has released the Rural Health Statistics (RHS) publication for the year 2020-21. It is a vital source of information on health infrastructure and human resources available in the public health institutions of all States/UTs.

As per RHS 2020-21, there are 1,57,819 Sub Centres (SC), 30,579 Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and 5,951 Community Health Centres (CHCs) respectively functioning in rural and urban areas of the country. Besides this, a total of 1,224 Sub Divisional/Sub District Hospital and 764 District Hospitals (DHs) are operational throughout the country.

The primary responsibility for ensuring the better health services and facilities lies with the State Governments/UT Administrations. Accordingly, the Ministry has conducted National, Regional and State level workshops for dissemination of the key findings of the NFHS-5. During these workshops the key findings of NFHS-5 have been shared with the State Governments/UT Administration, Central Ministries and other Stakeholders for policy/research purpose and for effective monitoring and implementation of the various Schemes/programmes.

The major key findings evident from NFHS-5 (2019-21) compared to NFHS-4 (2015-16)

• India has made striking progress in population control measures in recent times. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR), i.e. average number of children per women, has further declined from 2.2 to 2.0 at the National level between NFHS-4 & 5.
• Overall Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) has increased substantially from 54% to 67% in the country. Use of modern methods of contraceptives has also increased in almost all States/UTs. Unmet needs of family Planning have witnessed a significant decline from13 percent to 9 percent. The unmet need for spacing, which remained a major issue in India in the past has come down to less than 4 percent.
• The proportion of pregnant women who had an ANC visit in the first trimester has increased from 59 to 70 percent between NFHS-4 and NFHS-5. A considerable progress is noticed in percentage of mothers who had at least 4 ANC visits at the National level from 51 percent in 2015-16 to 58 percent in 2019-21.
• Institutional Births have increased substantially from 79 percent to 89 percent in India. Even in rural areas around 87 percent births are delivered in health facilities and same is 94 percent in urban areas.
• In NFHS-5, more than three-fourths (76.4%) children age 12-23 months were fully immunized, compared with 62 percent in NFHS-4.

List of SDG indicators, where NFHS-5 is the data source

5-May-2022: Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya releases NFHS-5 report

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya released the National Report of the fifth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) in the presence of Shri Bhupendrabhai Patel, Chief Minister of Gujarat and Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, at the 'Swasthya Chintan Shivir' being held at Vadodara, Gujarat today.

The report comprises of detailed information on key domains of population, health and family welfare and associated domains like characteristics of the population; fertility; family planning; infant and child mortality; maternal and child health; nutrition and anaemia; morbidity and healthcare; women’s empowerment etc.

The main objective of successive rounds of the NFHS has been to provide reliable and comparable data relating to health and family welfare and other emerging areas in India. The NFHS-5 survey work has been conducted in around 6.37 lakh sample households from 707 districts (as on March, 2017) of the country from 28 States and 8 UTs, covering 7,24,115 women and 1,01,839 men to provide dis-aggregated estimates up to district level. The national report also provides data by socio-economic and other background characteristics; useful for policy formulation and effective programme implementation.

The scope of NFHS-5 is expanded in respect of earlier round of the survey (NFHS-4) by adding new dimensions such as death registration, pre-school education, expanded domains of child immunization, components of micro-nutrients to children, menstrual hygiene, frequency of alcohol and tobacco use, additional components of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), expanded age range for measuring hypertension and diabetes among all aged 15 years and above, which will give requisite inputs for monitoring and strengthening existing programmes and evolving new strategies for policy intervention. Thus, NFHS-5 provides information on important indicators which are helpful in tracking the progress of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country. NFHS-4 (2015-16) estimates were used as baseline values for a large number of SDG indicators and NFHS- 5 will provide data for around 34 SDG indicators at various levels.

Key results from NFHS-5 National Report- Progress from NFHS-4 (2015-16) to NFHS-5 (2019-21)

• India has made significant progress in population control measures in recent times. The Total Fertility Rates (TFR), an average number of children per women, has further declined from 2.2 to 2.0 at the national level between NFHS-4 & 5. There are only five States in India, which are above replacement level of fertility of 2.1. They are Bihar (2.98), Meghalaya (2.91), Uttar Pradesh (2.35), Jharkhand (2.26) Manipur (2.17).
• Overall Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) has increased substantially from 54% to 67% in the country. Use of modern methods of contraceptives has also increased in almost all States/UTs. Unmet needs of family Planning have witnessed a significant decline from13 per cent to 9 per cent. The unmet need for spacing, which remained a major issue in India in the past has come down to less than 10 per cent.
• The proportion of pregnant women who had an ANC visit in the first trimester increased from 59 to 70 percent between NFHS-4 and NFHS-5. In most of the States, with the maximum increase of 25 percentage points in Nagaland, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Haryana was noticed. In contrast, Goa, Sikkim, Punjab and Chhattisgarh showed marginal decrease in first trimester ANC visits. A considerable progress is noticed in 4+ ANC at the national level from 51 percent in 2015-16 to 58 percent in 2019-21.
• Institutional Births have increased substantially from 79 percent to 89 percent in India. Even in rural areas around 87 percent births are delivered in Institutions and same is 94 percent in urban areas. Institutional births increased by a maximum of 27 percentage points in Arunachal Pradesh, followed by over 10 percentage points in Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. Over 91 percent of districts have more than 70 percent of births in the last 5 years that took place in health facilities.
• In NFHS-5, more than three-fourths (77%) children age 12-23 months were fully immunized, compared with 62 percent in NFHS-4. Full vaccination coverage among children ranges from 57 percent in Nagaland to 95 percent in DNH & DD. Odisha (91%), Tamil Nadu (89%), and West Bengal (88%) also have shown relatively higher immunization coverage.
• The level of stunting among children under 5 years has marginally declined from 38 to 36 percent for India since the last four years. Stunting is higher among children in rural areas (37%) than urban areas (30%) in 2019-21. Variation in stunting ranges from the lowest in Puducherry (20%) and highest in Meghalaya (47%). A notable decrease in stunting was observed in Haryana, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Sikkim (7 percentage points each), Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Manipur (6 percentage points each), and Chandigarh and Bihar (5 percentage points each).Compared with NFHS-4, the prevalence of overweight or obesity has increased in most States/UTs in NFHS-5. At national level, it increases from 21 percent to 24 percent among women and 19 percent to 23 percent among men. More than a third of women in Kerala, A&N Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Sikkim, Manipur, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Punjab, Chandigarh and Lakshadweep (34-46 %) are overweight or obese.
• NFHS-5 shows an overall improvement in SDG indicators in all States/UTs. The extent to which married women usually participate in three household decisions (about health care for herself; making major household purchases; visit to her family or relatives) indicates that their participation in decision making is high, ranging from 80 percent in Ladakh to 99 percent in Nagaland and Mizoram. Rural (77%) and urban (81%) difference is found to be marginal. The prevalence of women having a bank or savings account that they use has increased from 53 to 79 percent in the last 4 years.
• Between NFHS-4 and NFHS-5, the use of clean cooking fuel (44% to 59%) and improved sanitation facilities (49% to 70%), including a hand-washing facility with soap and water (60% to 78%) have improved considerably. There has been a substantial increase in the proportion of households using improved sanitation facilities, which could be attributed to the Swatch Bharat Mission programme.

New dimensions in NFHS-6 (2023-24) – Learning from NFHS-5

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India has launched a number of flagship programmes, such as Ayushman Bharat, Poshan Abhiyan etc., to improve the health of the Indian population in general and the vulnerable and deprived sections of the population in particular. Moreover, India is also moving towards the direct bank transfer of benefits to the beneficiaries of its various programmes. In addition, India has committed to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The MoHFW is constantly monitoring the SDG related health goals. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a number of new challenges related to health system have been emerged in the country.

In this context, NFHS-6, which is scheduled to be conducted during 2023-24, propose to cover various new domain areas, which include:

“COVID-19 hospitalization and distress financing, COVID-19 vaccinations, Director Benefit Transfers (DBT) under various welfare schemes initiated by GoI, Migration, Utilization of health services –Health and wellness centre, health insurance/ health financing, digital literacy, counselling on family planning after abortion and incentives under new methods of family planning, quality of family planning programme, menstrual hygiene, marital choice, visit by community health workers for health awareness and needs, supplementary nutrition from the Anganwadi/ ICDS center while breastfeeding, blood transfusion (month and year), financial inclusion among women, knowledge of anaemia, Hepatitis B &C, Syphilis etc.”

Unlike in previous rounds, NFHS-6 will adopt Urban Frame Survey (UFS, 2012-17) of NSO, MoSPI as a sampling frame for urban area. This strategy will minimize the non-sampling errors to large extent as the boundary identification problems using 2011 census frame will be resolved. While for rural areas, updated list of villages from NSO will be used as a frame, which would be matched with the PCA from the Census to get auxiliary information.

On the occasion of Chintan Shivir, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has also released the Rural Health Statistics publication for the year 2020-21 (as on 31st March, 2021). It is a vital source of information on health infrastructure and human resources available in the public health institutions of all States/UTs. It also facilitates identification of additional resources for better management of public health delivery system. The data is extensively used for decision making and policy intervention by Policy Planners, researchers, NGOs and other stakeholders.

As per RHS 2020-21, there are 157819 Sub Centres (SC), 30579 Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and 5951 Community Health Centres (CHCs) respectively functioning in rural and urban areas of the country. Besides this, a total of 1224 Sub Divisional/Sub District Hospital and 764 District Hospitals (DHs) are operational throughout the country.

The publication also provides the information on requirement, vacancy and shortfall of key infrastructures and human resources across the country based on specific norms which helps in filling the gaps, if any.

Progress of Rural Health Statistics Publication

Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) has been publishing Rural Health Statistics (RHS) publication since the year 1992, which contains important and crucial information related to Human Resources and Health Infrastructure available in the Public Health facilities of India as on 31st March of every year.

Based on the new requirement, the formats of the publication have been changed from time to time. From the year 2018-19 onwards, the data with respect to the Urban Health components have also been included in the publication.

For planning of health programmes and policy in the country, this publication is used by various stakeholders like policy makers, researchers, NGOs and various Institutions working in the field of Public Health. It also serves as important sources of information for various RTIs and Parliament related questions.

24-Nov-2021: Union Health Ministry releases NFHS-5 Phase II Findings

Dr. Vinod Kumar Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog and Shri Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary, Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, released the Factsheets of key indicators on population, reproductive and child health, family welfare, nutrition and others for India and 14 States/UTs (clubbed under Phase-II) of the 2019-21 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) here today.

The States and UTs which were surveyed in the Phase-II are Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, NCT of Delhi, Odisha, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The findings of NFHS-5 in respect of 22 States & UTs covered in Phase-I were released in December, 2020.

The main objective of successive rounds of the NFHS is to provide reliable and comparable data relating to health and family welfare and other emerging issues. The NFHS-5 survey work has been conducted in around 6.1 lakh sample households from 707 districts (as on March, 2017) of the country; covering724,115 women and 101,839 men to provide disaggregated estimates up to district level. All the results of NFHS-5 are available in the public domain on the Ministry website (www.mohfw.gov.in).

The all-India and State/UT level factsheet released includes information on 131 key indicators. It provides information on important indicators which are helpful in tracking the progress of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country. NFHS-4 (2015-16) estimates were used as baseline values for a large number of SDG indicators. Many indicators of NFHS-5 are similar to NFHS-4carried out in 2015-16 to make possible comparisons over time. However, NFHS-5 includes some new focal areas, such as death registration, pre-school education, expanded domains of child immunization, components of micro-nutrients to children, menstrual hygiene, frequency of alcohol and tobacco use, additional components of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), expanded age ranges for measuring hypertension and diabetes among all aged 15 years and above, which will give requisite input for strengthening existing programmes and evolving new strategies for policy intervention.

The key results from India and Phase-II States/UTs NFHS-5 Factsheets areas below:

• The Total Fertility Rates (TFR), an average number of children per women has further declined from 2.2 to 2.0 at the national level and all 14States/UT’s ranging from 1.4 in Chandigarh to 2.4 in Uttar Pradesh. All Phase-II States have achieved replacement level of fertility (2.1) except Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.
• Overall Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) has increased substantially from 54% to 67% at all-India level and in almost all Phase-II States/UT's with an exception of Punjab. Use of modern methods of contraceptives has also increased in almost all States/UTs.
• Unmet needs of family Planning have witnessed a significant decline from13 per cent to 9 per cent at all-India level and in most of the Phase-II States/UTs. The unmet need for spacing which remained a major issue in India in the past has come down to less than 10 per cent in all the States except Jharkhand (12%), Arunachal Pradesh (13%) and Uttar Pradesh(13%).
• Full immunization drive among children aged 12-23 months has recorded substantial improvement from 62 per cent to 76 per cent at all-India level.11out of 14 States/UTs has more than three-fourth of children aged 12-23 months with fully immunization and it is highest (90%) for Odisha.

On comparing NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 data, the increase in full immunization coverage is observed to be expeditious in many states and UTs; More than50 per cent of Phase-II States/ UTs are sharing over 10 percentage points during the short span of 4 years. This can be attributed to the flagship initiative of Mission Indradhanush launched by the government since 2015.

• There is an increase from 51 per cent to 58 per cent of women receiving the recommended four or more ANC visits by health providers at all-India level. Also, all the Phase-II States/UTs have shown improvement except Punjab between 2015-16 to2019-20.
• Institutional births have increased substantially from 79 per cent to 89 percent at all-India Level. Institutional delivery is 100 per cent in Puducherry and Tamil Nadu and more than 90 per cent in 7 States/UTs out of 12 Phase II States/UTs.
• Along with an increase in institutional births, there has also been a substantial increase in C-section deliveries in many States/UTs especially in private health facilities.
• Child Nutrition indicators shows a slight improvement at all-India level as Stunting has declined from 38 per cent to 36 per cent, wasting from 21 per cent to 19 per cent and underweight from 36 per cent to 32 percent at all India level. In all phase-II States/UTs situation has improved in respect of child nutrition but the change is not significant as drastic changes in respect of these indicators are unlikely in short span period.
• Anaemia among children and women continues to be a cause of concern. More than half of the children and women (including pregnant women) are anaemic in all the phase-II States/UTs and all-India level compared to NFHS4, in spite of substantial increase in the composition of iron folic acid (IFA)tablets by pregnant women for 180 days or more.
• Exclusive breastfeeding to children under age 6 months has shown an improvement in all-India level from 55 percent in 2015-16 to 64 per cent in 2019-21. All the phase-II States/UTs are also showing a considerable progress.
• Women's empowerment indicators portray considerable improvement at all India level and across all the phase-II States/UTs. Significant progress has been recorded between NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 in regard to women operating bank accounts from 53 percent to 79 percent at all-India level. For instance, in the case of Madhya Pradesh the increase was to the tune of 37 percentage point from 37 per cent to 75 per cent. More than 70 per cent of women in every state and UTs in the second phase have operational bank accounts.

Member (Health), NITI Aayog, congratulated all the Health administrators on the wide expansion of insurance coverage which has been captured in NFHS-5. He espoused the view that the data from the survey would help the Government achieve Universal Health Coverage and stated, “NFHS-5 shows Momentum towards achieving SDG is getting further accelerated.”

The Union Health Secretary noted that with the widening scope of household questionnaire, the data generated from NFHS will be beneficial to all line ministries, State Govts and other stakeholders. He remarked that data of NFHS-5 does not fully capture the transformative interventions of Ayushman Bharat -Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana and Pradhan Mantri-Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan as they were being rolled out as households were being surveyed across the country. He also observed that inter-ministerial co-ordination is required between the ministries of Women and Child Development, Food, Rural Development and Panchayat affairs to tackle nutrition deficiency and Anaemia in the population as has been shown in the survey.

Shri Vikash Sheel, Additional Secretary and Mission Director, NHM, Dr. Dharmendra Singh Gangwar, Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor, Ms. Arti Ahuja, Additional Secretary (Health), Dr. Manohar Agnani, Additional Secretary (Health), Ms. Sandhya Krishnamurthy, Director General (Statistics), Prof. K. P. James, Director, Indian Institute of Population Studies, Mumbai and other senior officials of the Ministry were present in the meeting along with Prof. (Dr.) Ashok Deorari, HOD, Pediatrics, AIIMS New Delhi and representatives of development partners like USAID.

5-Aug-2021: Malnutrition Among Women and Children

The data on nutritional indicators is captured under the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) conducted periodically by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. NFHS-4 was conducted in 2015-16 and a Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) was conducted in 2016-18. The data for malnutrition as per NFHS-5 is available for only 22 States/UTs.

As per NFHS-4, 35.7% children under 5 years of age are underweight and 38.4% are stunted indicating a reduction from the previous data captured in NFHS-3 (2005-06), which reported 42.5% children under 5 years of age as underweight and 48% stunted. As per the Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report 2020, the prevalence of stunting among children under 5 years of age is 21.3%. CNNS conducted in 2016-18 (under the aegis of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) shows that India has made substantial improvement in prevalence of stunting as the prevalence has further reduced from 38.4% as per NFHS-4 to 34.7%.

Further, as per NFHS-4, 22.9% women (15-49 years of age) have chronic energy deficiency (BMI less than 18.5 kg/m2) which is a decline from the previous NFHS-3 (2005-06) levels which reported 35.5% women having chronic energy deficiency.

The trends in wasting of children under 5 years has shown improvement and declined over the years from 21% (NFHS-4) to 17.3% (CNNS). As per the Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report 2020, the prevalence of wasting among children under 5 years of age is 6.9%.

POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched on 8th March, 2018, with an objective to reduce malnutrition and achieve improvement in nutritional status of Children from 0-6 years, Adolescent Girls, Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers in a time bound manner.

For alleviation of malnutrition, Government has announced Mission Poshan 2.0 to strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach and outcomes with focus on developing practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity to disease and malnutrition. Steps have been taken to improve nutritional quality and testing in accredited labs, strengthen delivery and leverage technology under the 'Poshan Tracker', a robust ICT enabled platform to improve governance with regard to real time monitoring of provisioning of supplementary nutrition for prompt supervision and management of services.

Government has advised States/UTs to ensure that the quality of supplementary nutrition confirms to prescribed standards laid down under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and regulations made there under. States/UTs have been advised to promote use of AYUSH systems for prevention of malnutrition and related diseases. A programme to support development of Poshan Vatikas at Anganwadi centers to meet dietary diversity gap leveraging traditional knowledge in nutritional practices has also been taken up.

19-Mar-2021: Malnutrition Amongst Children and Women

As per National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), malnutrition indicators like stunting and underweight prevalence declined in rural areas as compared with NFHS-3. Prevalence of anaemia in women of reproductive age (WRA) group 15-49 years in rural areas also declined. Malnutrition is a multi-dimensional issue, affected by a number of generic factors. Anaemia in pregnant women increases the risk of low birth weight for the newborn.

Govt. has under taken several interventions under the Reproductive and Child Health Programme of National Health Mission, for carrying out various activities for management of nutrition and anaemia in women and children including the strategy for Anaemia Mukt Bharat (AMB), promotion of appropriate infant and young child feeding practices that include early initiation of breastfeeding and exclusive breastfeeding till 6 months of age, use of ORS and Zinc in diarrhoea, and Vitamin A supplementation programme for all children below five years of age.

Village Health and Nutrition Days and Mother and Child Protection Card are the joint initiative of the Ministries of Health & Family welfare and the Ministry of Woman and Child for addressing the nutrition concerns in children, pregnant women and lactating mothers. Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) Scheme, incentivizes women for institutional delivery at public health facilities. Similarly, under Janani Shishu Suraksha Yojana (JSSK), all infants seeking treatment in public health facilities are provided food, medicines and transport, free of cost as an entitlement. Under the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) and Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK), systematic efforts are undertaken to detect nutrition deficiency including anemia among children and adolescents respectively.

10-May-2020: Using NFHS for population surveillance for coronavirus

Currently, governments worldwide have been testing for COVID-19 in high-risk individuals only. However, there have been concerns that such an approach does not give an accurate number of those affected, making it impossible to understand the true prevalence in a population.

A comment recently published in Lancet Global Health proposes the use of the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) framework to ascertain the prevalence of COVID-19.

The scientific and logistical infrastructure of India’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS) can be leveraged to conduct random sample-based population surveillance to track coronavirus.

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India. All National Family Health Surveys have been conducted under the stewardship of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, with the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, serving as the nodal agency.

It releases national, State and district level data on population and household health profile. The layering of COVID-19-focused data-collection efforts onto the NFHS infrastructure would keep operational costs low.

12-Mar-2020: Malnutrition among Women

As per the recent report of National Family Health Survey (NFHS) – 4 conducted by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2015-16, 22.9% women (15-49 years of age) are underweight (BMI less than 18.5 kg/m2). The five States having highest percentage of malnutrition among women are Jharkhand (31.5%), Bihar (30.4%), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (28.7%), Madhya Pradesh (28.4%), Gujarat (27.2%) and Rajasthan (27%).

The Government has accorded high priority to the issue of malnutrition and is making serious efforts to address this issue. Several schemes with direct as well as indirect interventions are being implemented across the country. Schemes like Anganwadi Services, Scheme for Adolescent Girls and Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojna (PMMVY) under the Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme are direct targeted interventions being implemented to address the problem of malnutrition among women and children in the country.

Anganwadi Services Scheme aims to improve the nutritional and health status of pregnant women & lactating mothers and reduce the incidence of mortality, morbidity and malnutrition. Under the Scheme, pregnant women and lactating mothers are provided supplementary nutrition, nutrition and health education, immunization, health check-up and referral services.

Scheme for Adolescent Girls is implemented for out-of-school adolescent girls in the age group of 11-14 years for self-development and empowerment of adolescent girls; improvement of nutritional and health status; to promote awareness about health, hygiene & nutrition; support to out-of-school Adolescent Girls for successful transition back to formal schooling or bridge learning/skill training; upgrade their home-based skills and life skills.

Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) is implemented with an aim to provide cash incentive to improve health seeking behaviour amongst the Pregnant Women & Lactating Mothers (PW&LM) and to compensate partially the wage loss in terms of cash incentive so that the woman can take adequate rest before and after delivery of the first child.

Government has set up POSHAN Abhiyaan on 18.12.2017. One of the goals of POSHAN Abhiyaan is to achieve improvement in nutritional status of Adolescent Girls, Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers in a time bound manner.

Further, to address malnutrition among women, the steps taken under the National Health Mission (NHM), a flagship programme of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, are Anaemia Mukt Bharat; organization of Monthly Village Health, Sanitation and Nutrition days for provision of maternal and child health services and creating awareness on maternal and child care; Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation; calcium supplementation and promotion of iodized salt.

2-Aug-2022: Population of Senior Citizens

As per Census 2011, population of Senior Citizens (people aged 60 years and above) is 10.38 Crore in the country. The projected population of Senior Citizens aged 60+ years of the country for 2026 (as on 01st March) is expected to be 17.32 crore, as per the report of Technical Group on Population Projections constituted by the National Commission on Population.

As per Census 2011, the number of senior citizens suffering from any disability in their old age is 53,76,619 which is approximately 5.18 percent of total population of senior citizens (10.38 crore).

Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is successfully implementing the ‘Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana (RVY)’ since 01.04.2017 with the objective to provide with such physical aids and assisted living devices which can restore near normalcy in the bodily functions to the senior citizens belonging to BPL category or senior citizens with monthly income not more than Rs. 15000/- who are suffering from age related disabilities/ infirmities. The Scheme is being implemented through Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation (ALIMCO) which has conducted 251 distribution camps and benefiting 2,52,229 senior citizens.

The objective of RVY is to provide physical aids and assisted living devices to all the economically weaker senior citizens who are suffering from age related disability.