THE JHARKHAND STORY DESK
Daltonganj, August 16: Was the Jharkhand Finance Minister, Radha Krishna Kishore, given inflated data of the percentage of malnutrition in Palamu?
Or was the error a prosaic one, an overlapping of data of malnutrition and anaemia among children under 5 years of age?
All said and done, the data on the percentage of malnutrition in Palamu was a flawed one and ought to have been cross-checked thoroughly and minutely before this data landed before the state Finance Minister.
Was this a case of miscommunication or a hurried and unverified communication?
Administrative sources said the Palamu DC Sameera S is not going to allow the person responsible for giving exact data to indulge in miscommunication or hurried and unverified communication, so easily get away with.
Malnutrition triggers anaemia and not the reverse; nevertheless, both are almost interlinked.
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Inflated Figures Raise Eyebrows
The minister Kishore, in his keynote address on the occasion of the main function of the Independence Day here in the police line ground Daltonganj, where he, as the chief guest, unfurled the Tiranga, read out the statistics for malnutrition pegged at 67 per cent among the children under 5 years of age in Palamu.
The minister was heard by a huge gathering at the police line ground. In the melee of the gathering, very few could notice this inflated percentage of malnutrition in Palamu, but when the full text of his speech was made digitally available, eyebrows were raised over 67 per cent of malnutrition in Palamu.
Those who know Kishore and the entire fleet of mediapersons have this conviction and faith that the minister is very sincere and particular about the data that he churns out or reads out, since he is very strict with exactness and genuineness of the data.
But here in the Independence Day speech of him everyone knew the percentage data of malnutrition in Palamu was highly inflated and again people became curious to know as to how this data reached the minister.
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Minister Points to Civil Surgeon, Chain of Miscommunication Emerges
This correspondent spoke on the phone to Minister Kishore, asking him how he said ’67 per cent of malnutrition in Palamu when it is around 44 per cent of malnutrition in Palamu, to which Kishore said, “This data was given to him by the Civil Surgeon Dr Anil Kumar Sriwastwa.”
The minister too realised there was some goof-up in the data, and he was not given the exact percentage. The minister knows his home district Palamu too well.
The Civil Surgeon Dr Anil Kumar Sriwastwa, on the other hand, told this correspondent, “This data was provided by the District Social Welfare Officer Neeta Chouhan to me, which I forwarded to the Hon’ble minister.”
It was time for this correspondent to obtain the version of the District Social Welfare Officer Neeta Chouhan, who when contacted, said, ” This 67 per cent of malnutrition in Palamu sounds too big. Let me find out.”
The entire machinery of health and social welfare offices got on the job to find out as to how this gaffe so occurred.
Statistics for SAM (Severely Acute Malnutrition) and MAM (Moderately Acute Malnutrition) were culled out @ 2.54 and 3.9 per cent, respectively. However, it didn’t serve the purpose much to counter 67 per cent of malnutrition among children under 5 years of age in Palamu.
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District Administration Seeks Explanation
Meanwhile, the DC Sameera S directed the District Social Welfare Officer Neeta Chouhan and Civil Surgeon Dr Anil Kumar Sriwastwa to find out the ‘miscommunication’ in respect of the data of the percentage of malnutrition among children under 5 years of age.
DC Sameera S told this correspondent, “I have asked these two officers to find out if this occurred at the level of compiling the figure or at the level of typing.”
The National Family Health Survey 5 has found 43.26 per cent of malnutrition among children under 5 years of age in Palamu.
There are more than 2,500 Aangan Wadi Centres (AWC) in Palamu that are providing nutritional supplements for children and lactating mothers, and such a 67 per cent of malnutrition among children under 5 years of age would render this huge number of AWCs worthless and dead.
The fight against hunger is a priority in Palamu. The 2024 Global Health Index ranking of India is 105 out of 127 countries. Palamu’s history is of too many bouts of drought and scarcity of food.
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Anaemia Data Overlap Behind Error
This correspondent made his own independent research as to how the percentage of malnutrition in Palamu was described as 67 percent only to find that percentage of anemia among children upto 59 months was 67 percent and perhaps this data of 67 percent anemia among children upto 59 months got overlapped of the data of the percentage of malnutrition among children under 5 years of age or to say under 59 months which is all the same.
The overlapping of the data was a prosaic error which everyone would wish not to happen at all on such an occasion like 15th August.
