Meghalaya, Manipur score well in malnutrition indicators
Manipur overall performance the best in NE; data submitted by Savitri Thakur in Rajya Sabha shows 37% stunted children in India
Shillong, July 28: Meghalaya and Manipur have performed well compared to other northeastern states in the list of stunted, wasted and underweight children, as provided by Savitri Thakur, junior minister in the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development.
In her response to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Thakur presented details of the malnutrition indicators in all states, as per the Poshan Tracker for June 2025. Manipur’s overall scores are the best among the northeastern states.
The following are the percentages in the eight northeastern states:
| State | Stunted % | Wasted % | Underweight % |
| Meghalaya | 20.73 | 1.11 | 5.14 |
| Manipur | 9.27 | 0.67 | 2.69 |
| Mizoram | 27.33 | 2.98 | 6.33 |
| Nagaland | 28.91 | 6.08 | 7.00 |
| Assam | 42.94 | 4.50 | 16.88 |
| Arunachal Pradesh | 38.38 | 5.18 | 11.65 |
| Tripura | 41.52 | 7.68 | 18.01 |
| Sikkim | 7.89 | 1.95 | 1.69 |
(Source: Women and Child Development Ministry in Rajya Sabha)
The World Health Organisation defines wasting as ‘low weight-for-height’. “It usually indicates recent and severe weight loss because a person has not had enough food to eat and/or they have had an infectious disease, such as diarrhoea, which has caused them to lose weight.”
According to state health official Sampath Kumar, the main reason for the state’s better scores in the malnutrition indicators is the economic empowerment of rural women through SHGs.
“Over 92% of the rural households are being supported with cash flow (access to finance) of over Rs 1,000 crore. Around 27% of rural households (poor households) are provided with new houses under the housing mission, along with sanitation, cooking fuel etc. The state is also working on improving all human development indicators by facilitating collaboration between all the departments through the Human Development Council and launching innovative projects, like the ECD mission and the Rescue Mission (CM-SMS) etc,” said Kumar.
Kumar is the principal secretary and development commissioner (Departments of Health and Family Welfare; Women and Child Development; Community and Rural Development and Programme Implementation and Evaluation Department).
However, the overall performance of the country as per the indicators is below par with the country having as many as 37% stunted children, 5% wasted and 16% underweight children.
