Under Fire Over Exclusion of Critical Data from NFHS-6, Govt Now Says Report ‘Not Final’

New Delhi: After being widely criticised by public health experts for excluding key indicators including anaemia estimates from the recently released National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-6 fact sheets, the Union government has said that anaemia estimates were not included owing to concerns over the blood-testing method in previous survey rounds, reported Times of India.

The Times of India report cited Health Ministry officials as saying that because of concerns about the capillary blood sampling method used earlier, haemoglobin testing was not carried out.

The officials said that now anaemia estimates will be included in the diet and biomarkers survey conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which uses venous blood samples and the results are expected to be more accurate.

The government’s clarification comes amid the ongoing debate about several missing indicators from NFHS-6 fact sheets, which cover 101 key health, nutrition and demographic parameters.

Rejecting allegations that key indicators had been dropped from the NFSA, the officials said that the fact sheets are only the first stage of data dissemination and not the final NFHS-6 report. They added that a detailed national report, to be released later, will contain additional indicators, analyses and methodological details, reported TOI.

The NFHS – the largest health survey of the country – is conducted by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), under the aegis of the Union Health Ministry. The NFHS-6 was carried out in 2023-24 and NFHS-5 in 2019-21. The factsheets of the NFHS-6 were released on May 29, 2026.

The Wire had earlier reported that NFHS-6 has some key indicators missing which would have revealed the performances of at least two flagship schemes of the Narendra Modi government.

One among the missing indicators is access to clean cooking fuel. What is also missing from NFHS-6 is the sex ratio at birth and infant and child mortality rates – although these two are reflected in other data-collection exercises of the government.

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