Integrated Child Development Services Scheme: Impact of Water Quality on Child Malnutrition in India

A growing body of evidence suggests that supplementary feeding programs have a positive effect on reducing malnutrition prevalence in developing countries. In India, despite substantial funding of its early childhood development program, which has a large supplementary feeding component, levels of child malnutrition have fallen only slightly. Using propensity score matching to identify impacts in data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) collected between 2005 and 2006, this paper finds that India’s Integrated Child Development Services scheme does not have a significant effect on malnutrition rates. Further, a heterogeneous treatment effect on nutrition outcomes indicates that quality of water is more important in reducing malnutrition prevalence than the feeding program itself. These findings point to the importance of investing in water and sanitation, and educating the public about hygiene to promote health knowledge and better child outcomes. As importantly, such investments have the potential of making the feeding program more effective.