Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

202 DEEPAK K. MISHRA AND VANDANA UPADHYAY
that for females was only 2.1. It is important to mention that the survey
found the median years of schooling for females in the state to be the lowest
among all northeastern states (IIPS and ORC Macro 2002: 25–29).
9. The sex-ratio among students first increased from 787 girls per 1,000 boys
at the pre-primary level to 830 girls at the primary and 903 girls at the middleschool
levels. The sex ratio then declined fast at the secondary and tertiary
levels, dropping further to only 222 girls per 1,000 boys at the university
level.
10. The drop-out rate of girls in these classes is also high in Arunachal Pradesh
in comparison with Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland
(Planning Commission 2002).
11. NFHS-II data also suggests that among the ever-married women, 78.2 per
cent consume green, leafy vegetables daily, but the percentages of women
who do not consume milk and curd is as high as 42. Although age does not
play a very important role in women’s food consumption pattern, illiterate
women have poorer and less varied diets than literate women, and the differences
are particularly sharp in the case of fruits, eggs, pulses and beans. The
household’s standard of living has a strong negative effect on the consumption
of nutritious food; the percentage of women who consume milk
or curd, fruit, egg and meat at least once a week is much less among households
with a low status of living, compared to that among women enjoying
a better standard of living.
The percentage of women with a body-mass-index (BMI) below 18.5 kg/m2 is the lowest in Arunachal Pradesh among all northeastern states. As expected,
nutritional deficiency is relatively higher among illiterate women and also
among those whose standards of living are low. As per the NFHS-II survey,
62.5 per cent of ever-married women were anaemic, 50.6 per cent had mildanaemia
and 11.3 per cent moderate anaemia. Barring Meghalaya, the
percentage of women with any anaemia was highest in Arunachal Pradesh
among all the hill states of northeast India.
According to NFHS-II, 22.1 per cent of girl children under three years of age
are underweight, 25.7 per cent are stunted and 4.7 per cent are wasted. Significantly,
in terms of the anthropometric measures, girls have better
nutritional status than boys.
12. In Arunachal Pradesh, the Panchayat Raj and the establishment of a Legislative
Assembly preceded the introduction of universal adult franchise. A
three-tier Panchayat Raj system, namely Gram Panchayat at the village level,
Anchal Samiti at the block level and Zila Parishad at the district level, came
into existence in 1969 in accordance with the provision of the North-East