- Kerala, Goa, Tripura, Tamil Nadu and Mizoram are among the top five States for well-being of children, according to a report brought out by non-governmental organisation Mobile Creches and launched by Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu.
- The young child outcomes index measures health, nutrition and cognitive growth with the help of indicators such as infant mortality rate, stunting and net attendance at the primary school level.
- It identifies eight States that have scores below the country’s average: they are Assam, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
- The index is part of the ‘State of the Young Child’ in India report released the 50-year-old NGO, which works in the field of early childhood care and development byensuring creche services at construction sites and slum settlements across several cities.
- The index has been constructed for two time periods (2005–2006 and 2015–2016) to enable inter-State comparisons as well as provide an idea of change over time.
- The report has also developed another index called the young child environment index to understand the policy and environment enablers that influence a child’s well-being.
- According to the environment index, Kerala, Goa, Sikkim, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh secured the top five positions. It uses five policy enablers that influence child well-being outcomes, including poverty alleviation, strengthening primary healthcare, improving education levels, safe water supply and promotion of gender equity.
- The environment index was constructed for 2015–2016 only due to limitations of data availability.
- The eight States that have a below average score on the outcomes index also fared poorly on this one.
- The report calls for an increase in public spending on children.
- According to its analysis on expenses towards child nutrition, healthcare, education and other necessary protection services, India spent ₹1,723 per child in 2018–2019, an amount that is insufficient and fails to reach the entire eligible population.
- The report points out that while the budgetary allocation for the Ministry of Women and Child Development has seen a year-on-year increase, all the additional funds have been allocated towards nutrition delivery under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS).
- While the population of children under six years of age is 158.8 million, the ICDS covers only 71.9 million children as calculated from the total number of beneficiaries across States.
