ABSTRACT
India is among the poorest performers on measures of malnutrition and hunger globally with tribal communities faring the worst. Central India is home to over 80% of the malnourished tribal population of the country. The focus of this chapter is on the inadequate dietary intake among the community as well as the inadequacies of existing government schemes to support pregnant and lactating women in terms of both scope and capacity. The future course of action should be around improving the supply side of welfare schemes for the tribal community through higher resource allocation and encouraging local innovations. Indigenous dietary practices that have been under threat for quite some time now need to preserved and it must be ensured that access to non-timber forest products are not restricted through an abuse of the FRA.
