While POSHAN Abhiyaan reflects India’s stated commitment to nutrition, the Union Budget has yet to align resources, decentralisation, and cross-sectoral financing in ways necessary to protect human capital and long-term growth
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India’s commitment to improving nutrition outcomes is visible on paper, but far less convincing in public finance. POSHAN Abhiyaan, now subsumed under Mission POSHAN 2.0, was designed to be a transformative, convergent nutrition mission. While the architecture for addressing malnutrition exists, chronic underinvestment, excessive centralisation, and weak integration with health, water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), as well as social protection systems, continue to undermine outcomes.
According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), between 2015–16 and 2019–21, child stunting declined to 35.5 percent, and underweight prevalence fell modestly. Yet these gains mask a deeper crisis, with nearly one in five Indian children remaining wasted, and anaemia affecting over half of all women of reproductive age. Global and national evidence is unequivocal: undernutrition in early life leads to irreversible losses in cognitive development, educational attainment, and lifetime earnings. The delay in addressing this crisis carries enormous economic and social costs.
Budgetary allocations for nutrition under POSHAN Abhiyaan and related schemes have been increasing nominally, but this does not necessarily translate to real, inflation-adjusted improvements in service delivery. The Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) was allocated approximately INR 26,889.69 crore in the 2025-26 budget, with INR 21,960 crore earmarked specifically for the Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0 programmes. In the Union Budget 2024-25, the allocation for Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0 stood at approximately INR 21,200 crore, and was revised down to INR 20,070.90 crore. A nominal allocation increase of around nine percent over the previous year’s revised estimates translates into only a modest real-term gain, after accounting for food price inflation, population growth, and expanded mandates under POSHAN 2.0.
Budgetary allocations for nutrition under POSHAN Abhiyaan and related schemes have been increasing nominally, but this does not necessarily translate to real, inflation-adjusted improvements in service delivery.
By contrast, costing studies for 2019-20 estimated that delivering a core set of nutrition-specific interventions, including food supplementation, maternity cash transfers, micronutrient distribution, counselling, and selected health services at scale in India would require INR 38,571 crore. An extended costing estimate for 2022-23 estimated India would need to invest at least INR 48,440 crore annually on direct nutrition interventions, reflecting higher unit costs and expanded service norms under POSHAN 2.0. The gap between what is needed and what is budgeted is therefore structural rather than incidental.
A NITI Aayog report on POSHAN Abhiyaan found that less than 50 percent of released funds were utilised by many states, particularly for capacity building, community mobilisation, and innovation components. A more recent analytical overview of POSHAN Abhiyaan implementation (covering 2021–2024) by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) notes that under-utilisation of funds, infrastructure delays, weaknesses in growth monitoring and digital tracking, along with persistent implementation gaps, constrain fund absorption. Without a meaningful boost in allocations, states are forced to ration services, compromise on quality and quantity, or delay payments to frontline workers, all of which weaken delivery.
Without a meaningful boost in allocations, states are forced to ration services, compromise on quality and quantity, or delay payments to frontline workers, all of which weaken delivery.
Under Mission POSHAN 2.0, Anganwadi Workers are expected not only to deliver supplementary nutrition and counsel families, but also to record real-time service delivery and growth monitoring data through the Poshan Tracker app, a smartphone-based digital platform that replaces traditional paper systems and feeds into national dashboards. The government has invested in digital tools and capacity-building initiatives such as the ‘Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi’ training modules to support Anganwadi Workers (AWWs), but evaluations note that limited digital literacy and implementation challenges continue to hinder effective use of these tools, underscoring the need for sustained investment in frontline capacity. Evidence from multiple states indicates gaps in smartphone access, insufficient operational support, and inadequate refresher training, which together underline that expanding frontline responsibilities without proportionate investment in skills, tools, and working conditions undermines delivery.
Malnutrition in India is highly contextual, with district-level data showing stark spatial disparity in nutritional outcomes that national averages obscure. Some districts have seen significant improvements under POSHAN, while others—particularly those with high tribal and marginalised populations—continue to struggle, suggesting that uniform planning and delivery frameworks fail to account for local realities. The World Bank’s analysis of POSHAN Abhiyaan implementation also highlights the role of local institutions, including Panchayati Raj bodies and community channels, in adapting nutrition messages and services to local cultural and environmental conditions. Independent evidence demonstrates that district-level financial and human resource support is linked with greater coverage and more equitable nutrition outcomes compared with support focused only at the national level.
Treating nutrition as a stand-alone scheme rather than a cross-sectoral investment weakens both effectiveness and accountability.
Research from Andhra Pradesh further highlights the potential of localised food procurement, kitchen gardens, and community engagement strategies to improve dietary diversity and service effectiveness, again underscoring the added value of decentralised planning and financing. Odisha offers a clear example of why decentralised and locally tailored nutrition planning matters. By routing Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and POSHAN nutrition delivery through women’s self-help groups (SHGs) and empowering districts with administrative autonomy, the state improved service continuity, accountability, and resilience, particularly during shocks such as Cyclone Fani and the COVID-19 pandemic. Evaluations by NITI Aayog, the World Bank, and UNICEF suggest that this model worked because decentralisation was backed by predictable financing and sustained capacity building.
Robust evidence shows that improvements in child nutrition and growth depend not only on food supplementation, but equally on maternal health services, antenatal care, immunisation, safe water and sanitation, and household income security. The Lancet’s Maternal and Child Undernutrition Progress Series 2021 demonstrates that nutrition-specific interventions alone can address only about one-third of the global stunting burden, with the remaining gains dependent on nutrition-sensitive investments in health systems, WASH, education, and social protection. Treating nutrition as a stand-alone scheme rather than a cross-sectoral investment weakens both effectiveness and accountability.
Despite this evidence, India’s nutrition architecture remains fragmented at the financing and review stage. While POSHAN Abhiyaan is designed as a multi-ministerial convergence mission integrating nutrition, health, WASH, and social protection programmes, in practice these sectors continue to be budgeted and monitored independently, with convergence largely expected to occur at the frontline rather than at the planning and financing level. Studies of frontline implementation in urban informal settlements indicate that cross-sector work with health and other departments is limited by coordination, training, and incentive gaps, and that operational silos persist at district and block levels despite convergence platforms being nominally in place.
Studies of frontline implementation in urban informal settlements indicate that cross-sector work with health and other departments is limited by coordination, training, and incentive gaps, and that operational silos persist at district and block levels despite convergence platforms being nominally in place.
Social protection instruments such as maternity benefits, the public distribution system, and employment guarantee schemes also play a critical role in protecting household food security and diet quality during periods of economic stress and shocks. Evidence shows that predictable income support and food transfers improve maternal nutrition and stabilise household consumption. Yet budgeting for these sectors remains largely siloed, with limited alignment to nutrition goals or shared outcome indicators.
The World Bank argues that governments must move beyond programme-level convergence to aligned financing, targets, and accountability mechanisms across sectors if nutrition outcomes are to improve at scale. India’s nutrition crisis is not invisible. The evidence is clear, the solutions are known, and the costs of inaction are immense. The Union Budget must now align ambition with resources, moving beyond symbolic commitments to substantive action on nutrition for strengthened human capital and a stronger economic future.
Shoba Suri is a Senior Fellow with the Health Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Dr. Shoba Suri is a Senior Fellow with ORFs Health Initiative. Shoba is a nutritionist with experience in community and clinical research. She has worked on nutrition, ...
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