Rs 1,200-Crore Nutrition System, Empty Plates: Why Madhya Pradesh's Children Are Still Going Hungry
Despite a Rs 1,200-crore budget, Madhya Pradesh's nutrition distribution system for children and mothers remains plagued by supply chain failures. An investigation found that while the system tracks beneficiaries digitally, food rations are frequently not reaching local centers.
Why it matters
This exposes a significant 'last-mile' delivery failure in government welfare programs, highlighting the gap between digital administration and physical reality.
In Madhya Pradesh, the administrative structure responsible for providing supplementary nutrition to nearly 8.5 million children, pregnant women and lactating mothers is being changed yet again. The state government has decided to transfer the responsibility for producing and distributing Take-Home Ration, or THR, from the State Rural Livelihood Mission back to the Department of Women and Child Development. This will be the fifth change in the nutrition distribution model since 2018. But while responsibility is moving from one department to another, food is not reaching several Anganwadi centres.An NDTV ground investigation across Bhopal, Sagar, Vidisha and Agar-Malwa found that Take-Home Ration supplies had remained disrupted for periods ranging from one to three months at several centres.Anganwadi workers said children, pregnant women and lactating mothers had been registered, their names were visible on government applications and their records were being regularly updated, but the ration meant for them had not arrived.The…
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