The government has launched a major initiative on malnutrition by launching the POSHAN Abhiyan. We will reduce the malnutrition level by at least 10% in the next five years, doubling the rate of reduction of malnourishment.

The 2019 promise is quantitative and comparative, which makes it testable: "We will reduce the malnutrition level by at least 10% in the next five years, doubling the rate of reduction of malnourishment."

India measures malnutrition through the National Family Health Survey. The fourth round, with fieldwork in 2015-16, is the baseline the promise implicitly runs from. The fifth round, fieldwork June 2019 to April 2021, is the only national measurement taken inside the promised five years.

It reports: "Thirty-six percent of children under age five years are stunted (short for their age); 19 percent are wasted (thin for their height); 32 percent are underweight (thin for their age)". On trend, the report is explicit: "Stunting declined from 38 percent in 2015-16 to 36 percent in 2019-21. Over this same time period, the prevalence of wasting has declined from 21 percent in 2015-16 to 19 percent in 2019-21."

Two percentage points of stunting over roughly five years is a relative fall of about five per cent. Between NFHS-3 and NFHS-4 stunting had fallen from 48 per cent to 38 per cent. Whatever measure of "the rate of reduction" is used, the period covered by this promise ran slower than the period before it, not twice as fast. Underweight fell more — 36 per cent to 32 per cent — but not on a scale that changes the conclusion.

One indicator went backwards, and it belongs in any honest account of nutrition policy in this period. "Sixty-seven percent of children age 6-59 months have anaemia (haemoglobin levels below 11.0 g/dl), which is higher than the NFHS-4 estimate of 59 percent." Anaemia rose across almost every group NFHS measures.

Three caveats, stated plainly.

First, coverage. NFHS-5's fieldwork ended in April 2021, so it measures the first two years of a five-year promise. It cannot tell us what happened between 2021 and 2024, and NFHS-6 results had not been published as of August 2026. This fact-check therefore grades the promise on the only national evidence that exists inside the window, and says so.

Second, the pandemic. NFHS-5's second phase was fielded through the Covid-19 period, which disrupted anganwadi services, supplementary nutrition and household incomes. That is a real explanation for a slowing trend. It is not a reason to record the trend as something other than what it was.

Third, the survey is the government's own. The International Institute for Population Sciences conducts it for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; this is not an outside critic's number. No CAG performance audit of Poshan Abhiyan has been tabled, so there is no independent audit of the scheme's spending or delivery to set beside it.

Poshan Abhiyan was launched, and the survey shows undernutrition falling on three of its four core measures. The promise was not that it would fall — it was that the rate of reduction would double. On the measurement available, it halved instead, and child anaemia rose. Our verdict is not supported.