As India enters the fiscal year 2026–27, the Union Budget signals continuity in its commitment to women and children. Allocations for early childhood care, nutrition, and gender-responsive programmes have increased, and flagship initiatives such as Mission POSHAN 2.0, Saksham Anganwadi, and Mission Shakti remain firmly on the government’s agenda. On paper, this suggests steady progress. In practice, however, the coming year will test a more uncomfortable truth: incremental budget increases are insufficient to address India’s deep and persistent nutrition crisis.
POSHAN Abhiyaan, now subsumed under Mission POSHAN 2.0, was envisioned as a transformative, convergent mission that would align nutrition, health, water and sanitation (WASH), and social protection to tackle malnutrition across the life cycle. The programme’s design reflects global best practice. Yet outcomes continue to lag because financing, implementation capacity, and cross-sector coordination have not kept pace with ambition.
The budgetary context illustrates this gap clearly. For nutrition, the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) has been allocated around ₹28,183 crore, a 15–16% increase over the previous year. Importantly, Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0, the flagship platform covering Anganwadi Services, POSHAN Abhiyaan, and adolescent nutrition accounts for about ₹23,100 crore, or more than 80% of the Ministry’s budget. These increases matter. But they must be read against the scale of the challenge.
According to NFHS-5, child stunting has declined to 35.5 per cent, and underweight prevalence has fallen modestly. Yet nearly one in five Indian children remains wasted, and over half of women of reproductive age are anaemic. These are not marginal failures; they represent a systemic crisis with long-term consequences. Global evidence shows that undernutrition in early life leads to irreversible losses in cognitive development, educational attainment, and lifetime earnings, imposing enormous economic costs on society. The Lancet Maternal and Child Nutrition Series (2021) demonstrates that nutrition-specific interventions alone can address only about one-third of stunting; the rest depends on investments in health systems, sanitation, education, and income security.
This is where Budget 2026–27 falls short.
While POSHAN allocations have increased nominally by around 9 per cent over previous revised estimates, inflation in food prices, population growth, and expanded service mandates significantly erode real-term gains. Costing studies underline the structural nature of this gap. A national estimate for 2019–20 suggested that delivering a core package of nutrition-specific interventions at scale would require ₹38,571 crore annually. Updated estimates for 2022–23 place this requirement closer to ₹48,440 crore, reflecting higher unit costs and expanded POSHAN 2.0 norms. Against this benchmark, current allocations remain well below what is needed to deliver quality services at scale.
Even the funds that are allocated are not always effectively used. An earlier NITI Aayog review of POSHAN Abhiyaan found that less than 50 per cent of released funds were utilised by many states, particularly for capacity building and community mobilisation. More recently, a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) performance audit covering 2021–2024 highlighted under-utilisation of funds, infrastructure delays, weaknesses in growth monitoring, and gaps in digital tracking, all of which constrain delivery.
At the frontline, these constraints are acutely visible. Under POSHAN 2.0, Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) are expected to deliver supplementary nutrition, counsel families, and record real-time data through the Poshan Tracker app. While the government has invested in digital tools and training initiatives such as Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi, multiple evaluations point to limited digital literacy, inconsistent smartphone access, and inadequate refresher training. Expanding responsibilities without proportionate investment in skills, tools, remuneration, and working conditions weakens both service quality and accountability.
Equally important is the issue of decentralisation. Malnutrition in India is highly contextual, with stark district-level disparities that national averages obscure. World Bank analyses of POSHAN Abhiyaan implementation highlight the role of local institutions - including Panchayati Raj bodies and community platforms in adapting nutrition services to local realities. Evidence from states such as Odisha, where nutrition delivery has been decentralised through women’s self-help groups with predictable financing and sustained capacity building, shows that locally empowered systems are more resilient and accountable even during shocks such as Cyclone Fani and COVID-19.
Finally, nutrition cannot be budgeted in silos. Maternal health services, sanitation, clean water, education, and social protection all shape nutrition outcomes. Yet India’s financing architecture continues to treat these sectors separately, with convergence largely expected at the frontline rather than embedded in planning, budgeting, and accountability systems. The World Bank has repeatedly argued that governments must move beyond programme-level convergence to aligned financing and shared outcome targets if nutrition outcomes are to improve at scale. Evaluations by NITI Aayog and UNICEF show that this model worked because decentralisation was backed by predictable financing and sustained capacity building.
Union Budget 2026–27 demonstrates intent. What it does not yet demonstrate is alignment between ambition and resources. Without deeper, real-term investment; stronger frontline capacity; genuine decentralisation; and cross-sector financing alignment, India risks sustaining progress that is simply too slow and too costly for its women, its children, and its future human capital.
(The author is Senior Fellow, Health Initiative, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)
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