भारत में कुपोषण मात्र एक सार्वजनिक स्वास्थ्य समस्या नहीं है, बल्कि यह सामाजिक समता, मानव विकास एवं प्रभावी कल्याणकारी शासन के समक्ष भी एक गंभीर चुनौती है । विवेचना कीजिए ।
Read this question in English
Malnutrition in India is not merely a public health concern; it is also a challenge of social equity, human development and effective welfare governance. Discuss.
🧭 How to think about this question · directive: “discuss”
Decode the demand
- Directive 'discuss': UPSC has already given you four lenses: public health, social equity, human development, welfare governance. Each must get a heading with evidence; agreeing without proof scores little.
- The issue in one line: stunting and anaemia persist in a grain-surplus India, so the cause lies in who eats, who is left out and how schemes reach them.
- The trap: writing a health essay with NFHS numbers and a list of schemes. The marks lie in showing inequality and delivery failure as causes, not just symptoms.
Think in a structure
- Open with Article 47 against one NFHS-5 figure; the gap between duty and data turns the answer to the demand.
- One heading per lens, two or three one-line points each: a keyword, a reason and a rule, thinker or dataset; a sub-point for every example.
- Visuals: a flowchart of the intergenerational cycle shows the human development cost faster than a paragraph; data from NFHS-5 and the Poshan Tracker anchor the other lenses.
- End from the administrator's seat: convergence, targeting the margins, water with food, social audit; close on SDG 2.2 so nutrition becomes a measure of governance.
Facts checked at source (6)· open
- NFHS-5 recorded modest improvement in child nutrition at the all-India level.Union Health Ministry releases NFHS-5 Phase II findings — PIB (24 Nov 2021) ↗“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”
- Same NFHS-5 release: anaemia remains widespread — more than half of children and women (including pregnant women) are anaemic at the all-India level.Union Health Ministry releases NFHS-5 Phase II findings — PIB (24 Nov 2021) ↗“More than half of the children and women (including pregnant women)”
- Article 47 makes raising the level of nutrition and the standard of living and improving public health among the State's primary duties.The Constitution of India (as on 1 May 2024), Article 47 - Legislative Department ↗“The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties”
- SDG Target 2.2: by 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under five.Goal 2 - Sustainable Development Goals (UN DESA) ↗“By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age”
- Amartya Sen pioneered the capability approach, which shifts the focus from resources to what people are able to do and be with them.The Capability Approach - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ↗“the capability approach changes the focus from means (the resources people have and the public goods they can access) to ends (what they are able to do and be with those resources and goods)”
- PIB factsheet (July 2026): the Poshan Tracker covers all 28 States and 8 UTs and had registered over 8.93 crore beneficiaries by May 2026.Poshan Tracker: Enabling Technology-Driven Nutrition Governance - PIB factsheet, 8 July 2026 ↗“As of May 2026, the Poshan Tracker registered over 8.93 crore beneficiaries”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2026, GS Paper II — paper ↗. Guidance: Minimalist IAS, checked 8 Nov 2026 (how we verify). ·
Model answer· 414words · Minimalist IAS
Article 47 asks the State to raise nutrition levels, yet NFHS-5 (2019–21) found 36% of under-fives stunted and over half of women and children anaemic. In a grain-surplus country such persistence points beyond the clinic, to inequality, lost capability and weak delivery.
A public health concern
- Triple burden: undernutrition, hidden hunger and rising overweight coexist, straining the same primary health system.
- NFHS-5: stunting fell only from 38% to 36%, wasting from 21% to 19%, underweight from 36% to 32%.
- Anaemia multiplies risk: anaemic mothers bear low-birth-weight babies, passing the burden to the next generation.
A challenge of social equity
- Unequal burden: stunting peaks among Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes and the poorest households, mapping caste and class onto bodies.
- Gendered hunger: women eat last and least; early marriage and low maternal schooling shape a child's diet.
- Social determinants: unsafe water and open defecation cause repeated infection, so calories alone cannot cure stunting.
- Drèze and Sen trace India's poor nutrition to neglected public services, not low income alone.
A question of human development
- Anaemic mother
- Low birth weight
- Stunted child
- Weak learning
- Low earnings
- Next anaemic mother
- Capability loss: Amartya Sen judges development by what people are 'able to do and be'; stunting shrinks that freedom.
- Irreversible window: damage in the first 1,000 days cannot be undone later, so costs run across generations.
A test of welfare governance
- Instruments exist: ICDS, PM POSHAN, Mission Poshan 2.0, fortified PDS rice and NFSA entitlements, anchored in PUCL v Union of India (2001).
- Poshan Tracker covers all 28 States and 8 UTs, registering over 8.93 crore beneficiaries by May 2026.
- Delivery gaps: vacant anganwadi posts, poor buildings, patchy data and weak convergence among health, WCD and water departments.
What I would do as district officer
- One child, one plan: converge anganwadi worker, ASHA and school kitchen on a single beneficiary list through the Poshan Tracker.
- Margins first: mobile anganwadis and community kitchens for tribal and Dalit hamlets, following Rawls's difference principle.
- Tamil Nadu's Chief Minister's Breakfast Scheme feeds government primary school children before class begins.
- Food with water and toilets: pair Jal Jeevan taps and toilets with rations, since infection wastes nutrients.
- Social audit: gram sabha review of anganwadi supplies and growth charts, so data is public and officials answerable.
SDG Target 2.2 commits India to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030; when the first 1,000 days of every child become the measure of a district's performance, nutrition turns from a health statistic into a verdict on governance.
Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 8 Nov 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.
