Impossible without well-nourished children

Malnutrition is perhaps the most significant hurdle in India’s race to become a developed country by 2047.

A teacher in Tumakuru wrote a poem in anguish after seeing the plight of young children languishing before her very door as a result of the SMART City project not providing creches for them. Titled I don’t need this Smart City, her poem says, “The city built on the lives of such innocents will never give me peace.”

Equally distressing instances arise from the lack of creches at construction sites, of little children being run over by reversing cement lorries, and of toddlers falling into open sumps and drowning while their mothers are busy carrying bricks up to the top floors. Also, one shudders with horror at the incidents of a stray dog mauling a toddler to death at a construction site and of a road roller running over and flattening toddlers who were left unattended by the roadside by a mother working on a road project for BBMP!

These horrifying and avoidable tragedies stem from the callous and patriarchal disregard of many employers and even government agencies to provide creche services to young children of poor mothers forced to earn their livelihood. A contractor’s response when questioned on why he had not admitted his workers’ children in a creche was: “If such demands are made on us, we will not employ women at all!” The overall mindset appears to be that it is solely a woman’s responsibility to care for her babies and no business of men or the government. Is it any wonder that these children, if they survive, suffer from irreversible malnourishment during their crucial first 1000 days, contributing to India’s alarming levels of malnutrition, among the highest in the world?

Notably, none other than the former head of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, highlighted this while interacting with media in connection with his latest book, Reimagining India’s Economic Future: “You must be joking about becoming a developed, rich country by 2047 with 35 per cent malnutrition today. Your malnourished children today are going to be workers in 2047. Will they be capable of doing work in the presence of robots and AI? Have you thought about what that entails? Our children’s high malnutrition levels should be the country’s shame that we want to eradicate.”

While laws mandate employers to provide a creche only when a certain number of women workers are employed, the Law Commission, in its Report No. 259 on Early Childhood Care and Education, recommends that a new Article 24A be inserted into Part III of the Constitution to ensure that the unconditional right of every child under six to crèche and daycare becomes an enforceable right, making it this State’s responsibility, not employers, especially in the unorganised sector.

However, rather than focusing on the setting up of creches by the state, PM Modi, in an episode of ‘Mann Ki Baat’, spoke of how citizens should participate in rooting out malnutrition, how the ‘Mera Bachha Campaign’ in Madhya Pradesh was using bhajan-kirtans to curb malnutrition, and about a snake and ladder game prepared in a district of Jharkhand, in which children learn about good and bad eating habits.

In pursuance of the above measures as solutions to malnutrition, no funds were released by the Union government in FY 2021–22 for the functioning of creches under the National Creche Scheme (earlier named Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme) as per a report in Business Line (May 25, 2022). The report adds that the budget allocation for the scheme has come down by 59% in the last three years. Moreover, out of 18,040 creches that were functional in FY18 under this scheme, 11,582 were shut down by FY20, shrinking the number to 6,458.

In Karnataka, it is disappointing that the Building & Other Construction Workers’ Welfare (BOCWW) Board, mandated through a Government Order to run creches for construction workers’ children in every ward or a group of wards, with its own accumulated funds of Rs 6,000 crore, has shut down the 137 creches that it had established in several districts, claiming irregularities in their functioning.

Amid this dismal scenario, it is encouraging that Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah has announced in the 2023–24 budget the setting up of ‘Koosina Mane’ (Child’s Home) in 4,000 grampanchayats for mothers working under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) as well as for other mothers living in the vicinity. This measure was
long overdue, as it had been a requirement under the MGNREGA Act since 2005 itself.

While this initiative needs to be lauded, the question arises whether setting up one creche per GP would serve the needs of all working women. And would setting up such parallel structures be feasible when the existing Anganwadis themselves are lacking funds and infrastructure? And why not creches in urban areas, where a tremendous amount of construction activity is happening and women are employed? When there are 69,000+ Anganwadis in the state already, at an accessible distance for most women in rural and urban areas, would it make better sense to upgrade these as daycare centres in a phased manner? But it may be too huge a task to serve all zero- to 6-year-olds in the existing Anganwadis, given their deficiencies.

The recommendation of the Law Commission provides a solution for this. It has been suggested that Article 21A of the Constitution should be amended to extend the Fundamental Right to Education to children in the 3–6 age group as well. To achieve this, it has been recommended that “pre-school centres should be established in all government and aided schools in a phased manner,” which shall have linkages with the Anganwadis for providing ICDS services to all the children. So, while the under-3-year-olds are served by the existing but upgraded Anganwadis, the 3-6-year-olds could be accommodated in the government schools.

Such an approach to providing comprehensive care, nutrition, and development for all children under 6 years old may help the country rid itself of the shame of malnutrition and bring peace to the likes of the anguished teacher in Tumakuru who care about children.

(The writer is the executive trustee of CIVIC-Bangalore)