Jharkhand’s Richest Mineral District Is Raising India’s Most Stunted Children
OPINION
By Prof. Anant Kumar
West Singhbhum, home to some of Jharkhand’s largest tribal populations and its richest mineral deposits, recorded the highest child stunting rate among all districts in the country in the last National Family Health Survey. It lies in a state that mines iron ore, coal, and bauxite worth thousands of crores every year.
NFHS-6, released by the Union Health Ministry in late May this year, reports that Jharkhand’s stunting rate has declined from 39.6 per cent to 35 per cent, whereas nationally it has fallen from 35.5 to 29.3 per cent over the same period, a steeper decline than Jharkhand’s. Jharkhand’s 35 per cent still places it among the worst-performing handful of states, behind only Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Meghalaya, Bihar, and Gujarat. A state that was falling behind the national average five years ago is still falling behind it now.
Wasting tells an even less encouraging story, with a negligible decline from 22.4 to 22.3 per cent between NFHS-5 and NFHS-6. National wasting rates have barely changed, from 19.3 to 19 per cent. NFHS-6 analysis specifically flags Jharkhand as having one of the highest wasting rates in the country, a pattern that holds across survey rounds. Wasted children, dangerously thin for their height, face the most acute, immediate risk, distinct from the slower damage caused by stunting.
None of this is simply a question of food availability. According to the latest figures, Jharkhand’s institutional delivery rate stood at 77.4 per cent in NFHS-6, compared with 75.8 per cent in NFHS-5, placing it among the handful of states with the lowest rates. Nationally, the rate has since climbed to 90.6 per cent. What matters more is the mechanism behind it. A mother who delivers without proper medical attendance is less likely to receive nutritional counselling, iron supplementation, and postnatal care that protect a child’s growth during the first thousand days, the exact window in which stunting takes root and becomes hard to reverse.
This is where Jharkhand’s own delivery systems deserve scrutiny rather than another comparison table. The state already has the infrastructure meant to prevent this: Anganwadi centres under the Integrated Child Development Services scheme, the Poshan Abhiyaan nutrition mission, and the Public Distribution System. National figures show these systems can work, as the country’s stunting rate has now fallen below 30 per cent for the first time. But a scheme functioning nationally is not the same as one reaching every block in Jharkhand, particularly the tribal, forested districts of West Singhbhum, Pakur, and Sahebganj, where this problem has always been worst.
Roughly three in ten people in Jharkhand remain multidimensionally poor, and poverty and undernutrition go hand in hand almost everywhere. A family without a steady income cannot consistently buy vegetables, pulses, milk, or eggs, even if the ration shop provides grain. Fixing hunger here cannot be separated from addressing income insecurity in the same households.
If the state is serious, it must take three steps as a priority. First, the Department of Women and Child Development needs to commission a dedicated audit of Anganwadi coverage and growth monitoring in the worst-performing districts, rather than being judged against a statewide average that obscures where children are most affected. Second, the Department of Health, Medical Education and Family Welfare needs to strengthen institutional delivery and maternal nutrition support, specifically in these districts, since the first thousand days are when this outcome is decided. Third, the state needs a standing coordination mechanism between food and civil supplies and rural development, since nutrition and poverty-reduction planning cannot continue to run as separate silos. A hungry child in Jharkhand is, more often than not, also from a poor household, and that has not changed from one survey to the next.
Jharkhand’s stunting rate has improved this time, but the rest of the country has progressed more quickly. Despite West Singhbhum’s wealth beneath the soil, the children above it still have not received as much benefit as they deserve.
The author is a Professor at Xavier Institute of Social Service, Ranchi. The views expressed are personal.
Email: pandeyanant@hotmail.com
