India has worked at a sluggish pace in trying to meet the millenium development goals (MDGs) and needs to accelerate progress if it has to meet a few of them, says a new report by the United Nations.

India will not be able to reduce hunger, under-5 mortality and maternal mortality, said the ESCAP/ADB/UNDP Asia-Pacific MDG Report 2011/12, titled “Accelerating Equitable Achievement of the MDGs: Closing the Gaps in Health and Nutrition in Asia and the Pacific.”

The irony is that war-torn Afghanistan is way ahead of India on providing safe drinking target to its population. “India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey have halved the proportion of population without access to safe drinking water and Afghanistan is on track to achieve the target,” said the 104-page report.

The report pointed out that South Asia has had a mixed bag of results in the pursuit of MDGs. "For instance, underweight children under five years of age in India are expected to number over 47 million in 2015, unless the pace of progress increases,” said the report.

The story of child malnutrition, a problem termed by rural development ministry as puzzling, is similar. The report pointed out to yawning gaps between rural and urban malnutrition scenario of India. “As many as 51 percent of children under five years of age in rural areas in India were underweight, while the number is 38 percent in urban areas – a difference of 13 percentage points,” the report added.

“The countries need less than 2 percent annual improvement in all 14 off-track countries to meet the goal,” said Noeleen Heyzer, under-secretary general of the UN.

The report lauded Kerala for improving health of the people and Tamil Nadu for its efforts to curb maternal and child deaths.

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