India has no updated national anaemia figures more than two years after its last major health survey quietly dropped haemoglobin testing, with the government’s replacement survey still being analysed and no release date in sight.
An information request to the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Nutrition, answered on 1 September, confirmed that fieldwork for the Diet and Biomarkers Survey of India, known as DABS-I, is complete, covering every state and union territory except Manipur. Laboratory analysis of blood and urine samples, along with statistical analysis, remains in progress, and the institute gave no timeline for finishing either stage or for publishing results.
The fifth round of the National Family Health Survey, covering 2019 to 2021, put anaemia prevalence at 57 per cent among women aged 15 to 49 and 67.1 per cent among children aged six to 59 months, among the highest rates recorded by the survey series. Those figures remain India’s most recent official national estimates.
The sixth round, covering 2023-24 and released in May 2026, dropped haemoglobin testing and the anaemia indicators that earlier rounds had reported. Responding to questions in the Rajya Sabha on 28 July, the health ministry said the decision followed “concerns regarding the reliability and comparability of anaemia estimates,” a reference to long-running technical debate over whether the testing method used in earlier rounds reliably reflected true anaemia levels, particularly at altitude and in hot climates.
DABS-I named as the replacement, without a deadline
The health ministry told Parliament that updated anaemia information was expected from DABS-I, which is also listed in parliamentary records under the name SAMPADA. The ICMR-NIN’s written response to the recent information request did not explain the reason for the continuing delay, stating only that the cause of the delay did not qualify as disclosable information under the Right to Information Act. No draft report, interim findings or executive summary has been made available.
The institute’s statement said only that laboratory analysis of biological samples “is under progress” and that the final report and public release “will be undertaken after completion of the ongoing analysis and requisite internal review,” without specifying what that review would involve or how long it might take.
Why the gap matters
Nutrition researchers have long used NFHS anaemia data to target supplementation programmes, track progress against national nutrition goals and compare India’s position internationally. Anaemia prevalence actually rose between the fourth survey round, covering 2015-16, and the fifth, covering 2019-21, despite years of government supplementation schemes aimed at pregnant women and young children, a trend that made the fifth round’s figures politically sensitive even before the sixth round dropped the indicator altogether.
Without updated figures, policymakers are left relying on data now five years old by the time DABS-I eventually reports, even as India’s broader food security indicators, including food inflation and crop output, have shifted substantially since 2021. State-level nutrition departments that had used NFHS-5 district data to prioritise anaemia-control spending now have no equivalent benchmark to check whether that spending has made any difference on the ground.
The absence of current data also complicates India’s own public health messaging: officials cannot say with confidence whether anaemia prevalence has improved, worsened or stayed flat since the last confirmed measurement, a gap that nutrition advocates argue undermines the credibility of nutrition programming at exactly the moment the government is being asked to show progress against its own targets.
