Much to cheer, concerns remain

Though there is a lot to cheer about the phenomenal improvement in health indices from Karnataka, the state needs to tread with caution and initiate ameliorative measure to catch up with the rest of the states in a few other. The state has made significant advance in maternal health, child nutrition and women’s safety.

As per the results of the National Family Health Survey-6 (NFHS-6), the state has achieved near universal parity with the institutional deliveries with 98.7 per cent deliveries happening at hospitals and nursing homes and 97.6 per cent of registered pregnant mothers receiving a mother and child protection card. The state has also recorded a remarkable drop in Under-5 child stunting from 35.4 per cent (in NFHS-5) to 26.5 per cent in the recent one.

Consequently, the percentage of under-5 underweight children has registered decline from 32.9 per cent to 27.8 per cent with wasting falling to 18.7 per cent, signalling drastic improvement in child health. The state has also done well in terms of spousal violence. Statistics show spousal violence in ever-married women plummeting from 44.4 per cent in NFHS-5 to 14.1 per cent in NFHS-6. It is a sector where Karnataka has done better than almost all other states.

But credibility of these figures always remains under shadow of doubt as the social mores never allow the victims to speak out aloud and there by shield the reality. The state continues to show progress in matters of teen pregnancies which have come down by 70 per cent—from 11,365 in 2020-2021 to 3,271 in 2025-26. Property ownership by women has also seen a major jump, increasing by 13.3 percentage points to reach 29.5 per cent of households.

The state continues to do well in terms of sex ratio at birth (SRB) with 932 girls being born against 1,000 boys. While it is better than national index i.e., 918 girls for 1,000 boys, the state needs to catch up with WHO benchmark of 952 girls for 1,000 boys. However, the state needs to be cautioned against further decline in fertility rate which currently stands at 18.3 per cent. A further reduction in fertility is all likely to create dependence on external labour forces thereby diluting the ethnic identity of the state.

Even as the above indices paint a happy picture, the state needs to take a note of rise, though slight, in infant mortality. The state’s infant mortality (IMR) though came down by 55 per cent—reaching 14 (out of 1,000 live births) in 2023—it has gone up to 15 in 2024. Still not a realm for worry, the authorities would do well to keep a tight vigil against further rise.

The statistics pertaining to rising obesity, both among men and women, paint a worrying picture. The survey found 41.2 per cent of women and 36.4 per cent of men either overweight or obese (out of a sample size of 30,260). It marks a sharp rise from NFHS-5 car ried out in 2019-20 when 30.2 per cent of women and 30.9 per cent men fell in these categories. These can be easily attributed to lifestyle change in urban areas, paucity of time for exercise, tight work schedules, shrunken living space.