NEW DELHI: India's Minister for Women and Child Development Krishna Tirath has said the country is committed to battling malnutrition across the country. “Nutrition is being given highest attention and priority by the Government of India,” she told reporters on Monday. Among others, she said the Integrated Child Development Services scheme is “reaching about 80 million children under six years and 20 million” and expecting and nursing mothers through a network of 1.3 million courtyard shelter. “The scheme is being strengthened and restructured with programmatic, institutional and managerial reforms along with enhanced financial commitment from an annual average of $3.5 billion to over $6.5 billion,” she said at the Global Nutrition Meet held in London. “The investment would improve infrastructure, professional management, monitoring, community participation and accountability of the program,” she said. The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has reported that malnutrition is more common in India than in Sub-Saharan Africa and has called on the Indian government to work harder to alleviate the situation. One in every three malnourished children in the world lives in India. Media reports in the country have recently said that some 46 percent of all children below the age of three in India are too small for their age while 47 percent are underweight.
