Gaurav Jain, Senior Vice President, AMESA, Reckitt Benckiser Health on the challenges, convergence and solutions to combat malnutrition in India.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Today's nutrition forum is organized like a well-paced magazine and we have different
00:08 sections to cover different aspects of the nutrition story.
00:14 We start with something called "Potion Spotlight" and the issue that we are going to talk about
00:20 starting off with is called "What's new in nutrition?
00:24 Challenge, convergence and collaboration".
00:28 To take this topic forward, let me invite the Senior Vice President of AMISA, Rekit
00:34 Benkiser Health, Mr. Gaurav Jain.
00:50 Good morning and good health, ladies and gentlemen.
00:55 I use the term "health" because we've gathered here this morning to talk about health.
01:01 Health for all, every man, woman and more specifically the children who denote the future
01:09 of India.
01:11 I think this day today reminds me of 2nd October 2014 when our Honorable Prime Minister, Shri
01:17 Modi made a call to make India open defecation free at that time.
01:24 He and at that time also announced the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
01:28 When that program was announced in 2014, the toilet coverage in India was about 39%.
01:35 In 2019, the toilet coverage has gone to 99.8%.
01:41 A success and you all know it's a major success, a success of that scale requires strong leadership,
01:48 clear vision and set timelines.
01:52 It is a movement that we as a nation and we as citizens are proud of.
01:56 I think we as a group here and all of India have to make the same commitment towards malnutrition
02:05 as was done in the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
02:09 I am also privileged to be addressing this esteemed gathering of experts and high power
02:14 decision makers in the field of malnutrition, personalities and organizations such as yours
02:21 who have devoted a significant part of their lives to elevate the nutritional status of
02:26 this country and lay the foundation for a healthy nation.
02:30 I am very thankful to Indranil.
02:32 Thanks a lot for giving me this honor to speak here.
02:36 I don't claim to be an expert on nutrition at all.
02:40 I think my only claim to fame is that I happen to be and I am lucky enough to lead a company
02:45 in India whose vision is to make a significant difference to the lives of everyday and at
02:50 every life stage of a billion Indians.
02:55 I can also say with some degree of confidence that my team which has worked extremely hard
03:01 on the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan through our flagship program of Banega Swachh India by Daidal has
03:08 made some difference in this field of Swachh Bharat.
03:12 The one common thing that we now have with nutrition is that last year we started a program
03:17 with the government of Maharashtra and we have taken the responsibility to nourish a
03:22 thousand villages in Maharashtra through the malnutrition program that we are leading.
03:27 And it is indeed an honor for me to be in front of such a learned audience and people
03:31 from all parts of the nation to be part of the Outlook Potion Awards.
03:35 This is a time to celebrate success but also to scale up the interventions that are working
03:43 and that is the need of the hour.
03:46 Together we hope to eradicate the curse of malnutrition for our country.
03:50 Our Prime Minister recently mentioned that good nutrition is the foundation of new India
03:55 and the Honorable Minister of Women and Child Development has shown personal commitment
03:59 to track the progress of malnutrition and has made a commitment towards making India
04:04 malnutrition free by 2022.
04:08 As India is striving to be a five trillion dollar economy, the future of this country
04:14 lies in today's children.
04:16 Malnutrition has an impact on social, emotive, cognitive well-being of the children and in
04:22 the long run it impacts the growth and productivity of this country.
04:27 There is a very strong commitment and leadership by the government of India on this issue and
04:31 the government has also stepped up budgets recently on women and child development by
04:36 over 20%.
04:38 With India's working population on the rise, the key differentiator versus other countries
04:42 of the world will be productivity gains will only be achieved when children have the best
04:49 start in life which means that India has to be a malnutrition free India.
04:55 While you all know that malnutrition is not the direct cause of death in children, the
05:00 recent report by the sample registration report, it shows that about 65% of the deaths in children
05:08 can be linked to malnutrition in some way.
05:11 The biggest one is prematurity and low birth rate followed by infections like pneumonia
05:17 and diarrhea and then some other stuff which happens through malnutrition which is anomalies,
05:23 bacterial sepsis and infections.
05:26 This is really unacceptable for a country like India, more so because most of this is
05:32 preventable and all of us need to work to contribute to reverse the situation.
05:39 The solution to this problem encompasses a lot of stuff.
05:42 It encompasses sanitation, hygiene, breastfeeding, fortification, nutrition, food security, accessibility
05:50 to treatment, care and support.
05:53 So it's a complex problem which doesn't have a very simple solution.
05:59 Malnutrition as you saw in the video also in the morning, just now it's one of the biggest
06:02 challenges in the world with over 2 billion people who are lacking key nutrients like
06:08 vitamin A or iron.
06:10 155 million children stunted, 52 million children wasted and India in some way, maybe wrongly
06:19 so has the accounts of 31% of the global burden on stunting.
06:24 The prevalence differs from state to state.
06:27 Some states are as high as 65%, some districts are as high as 65% and I saw data that shows
06:35 that 239 out of 604 districts that are in India are above 40% stunting levels.
06:43 No national purpose can be achieved without public, private and civil society coming together.
06:49 To make India and Indians proud, there has to be a greater role of public-private sector
06:55 mix since as I said it's a very complex issue.
06:59 We need to prioritize, invest in data, capacity to use data and we need to scale up financing
07:05 through government allocated funds and CSR grants.
07:08 We need nutrition diversity to fast track our progress, galvanize action on healthy
07:12 diet and importantly all of us make and deliver on commitments to end malnutrition in all
07:18 forms.
07:20 We have taken up the responsibility as a company to nourish thousand villages in Maharashtra.
07:26 That program is in collaboration driven by Plan India, Wehara International Network and
07:32 the Village Social Transformation Foundation.
07:35 We are working in two districts of Nandarbar and Amravati and those have been chosen because
07:40 they are aspirational district with a very high tribal population and wash indicators.
07:47 We plan to cover both the mother and child.
07:52 The focus is the first thousand days of a child's birth, 270 days in the womb and two
07:57 years as he is growing up.
08:03 Improving nutritional status of pregnant women by encouraging consumption of IFA tablets,
08:07 full antenatal checkups would result in reduction in preterm and low birth rate babies.
08:13 Initiation of breast milk within one hour of birth, improved diet diversity among lactating
08:18 women, exclusive breastfeeding and complementary diet along with breastfeeding for up to two
08:23 years are some of the measures that we are working on.
08:27 We have set up breastfeeding pods in public places.
08:29 We are starting a digital voucher scheme to take severely malnourished children to malnourished
08:36 nourishment rehabilitation centres and that also covers the cost of transportation and
08:42 the loss of wages.
08:43 We are also working on hygiene, sanitation and access to clean drinking water in these
08:48 areas.
08:50 I think you will hear about it more as the day goes along.
08:55 The presence of all of you, stakeholders, potential partners here today not only gives
09:00 me encouragement but also hope that these many like-minded people across various sectors
09:07 who are open to partnerships for a larger national purpose will come together and we
09:13 all will do something to change this situation.
09:17 It is also very heartening to see media playing a role in a big way in this war against malnutrition.
09:23 The food portion is an extraordinary step.
09:26 It has been inspired by the Sustainable Development Goal 2017 which talks of partnerships to achieve
09:33 the goals that are set and we are here to join hands to achieve the SDG 2 and SDG 3
09:39 which is zero hunger and good health and well-being respectively.
09:43 I hope by the time that we leave the room this evening many new partnerships would have
09:48 been formed and these would go a long way to make India hunger free by using appropriate
09:55 technologies to ascertain the results and scaling best practices nationwide.
10:00 I look forward to that day when we achieve that vision.
10:04 Thank you very much.
10:05 [Applause]
10:07 [Music]
10:09 (music fades)