What share of India's young children are stunted?
NFHS · IIPS · released 29 May 2026
| Period | Value (%) |
|---|---|
| NFHS-6 (2023-24) | 29.3 |
| NFHS-5 (2019-21) | 35.5 |
| NFHS-4 (2015-16) | 38.4 |
Use in your answer
29.3% of children under five in India were stunted in NFHS-6 (2023-24), compared with 35.5% in NFHS-5 (2019-21) (National Family Health Survey). Source: IIPS and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6) 2023-24 Fact Sheets; NFHS-5 (2019-21) and NFHS-4 (2015-16) India reports.
Cite as: National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6), 2023-24 (IIPS, Health Ministry)
What this shows
- 29.3% of children under five were stunted in NFHS-6 (2023-24), down from 35.5% in NFHS-5 (2019-21) and 38.4% in NFHS-4 (2015-16).
- Stunting was higher in rural areas (30.9%) than in urban areas (23.9%) in NFHS-6.
- Other child-nutrition measures moved less: 19.0% of children under five were wasted (19.3% in NFHS-5) and 31.8% underweight (32.1%); severe wasting fell to 5.2% from 7.7%.
The latest figure, as people NFHS-6 (2023-24)
Cite this
Cite a fixed version from every published version below.
Source and method
What exactly is measured
Share of children under five who are stunted: their height is more than two standard deviations below the WHO Child Growth Standards median for their age, a sign of chronic undernutrition. From the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), run for the Health Ministry by IIPS, Mumbai. NFHS-6 figures come from its fact sheets, which the survey calls provisional; NFHS-6 covers every state and UT except Manipur.
Child stunting by state
Children under five who are stunted (height-for-age more than two standard deviations below the WHO median), NFHS-6 (2023-24) fact sheets, which the survey calls provisional. Manipur was not covered in NFHS-6; small states and UTs have small samples. Source: IIPS and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6) 2023-24, India and State/UT Fact Sheets, NFHS-6 (2023-24).
Where
Ranked
How are the states spread?
12 of 35 states fall between 25% and 30%. Each column counts the states in one band of child stunting; the dashed line is the all-India figure.
Hover a column for the states in it. Bands are equal widths of the state figures, NFHS-6 (2023-24).
History: every published version
Each time the source changes this series we archive the full series as it stood, with an archived copy of the source, and never delete an old version. Each version has a permanent page you can cite. Recorded since 18 Oct 2026: 1 version.
No figure in this series has been revised since we began recording on 18 Oct 2026.
- 3 periods, latest NFHS-6 (2023-24): 29.3% · first snapshotArchived source
1c66c25681a5
Release notes (1)
- 29.3%NFHS-6 (2023-24), fact sheets (provisional)
Get the data
Use it in Excel, Python or R
Excel (Data → From Web): https://india.tf/c/hea-stunting-059/data.csv
Python: pandas.read_csv("https://india.tf/c/hea-stunting-059/data.csv")
R: read.csv("https://india.tf/c/hea-stunting-059/data.csv")
All statistics: /api/index.json. Free to reuse with attribution (GODL-India).
