Poorest & uneducated mothers benefit least from healthcare services: Study

Despite a four-fold increase in the number of women and children receiving supplementary nutrition under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme in the 10 years to 2016, a large proportion of the poorest have not benefited, a new study has found.

Women who were uneducated or from the poorest households had lower access to the flagship programme the study found. While the poorest households had the highest utilisation of ICDS services in 2006, their share became the second lowest in 2016, the study says, suggesting that the reasons could include poor delivery, difficulty of accessing remote regions, and