Underscoring the importance of malnutrition in children, Sustainable Development Goals target 2.2 committed to the world for ending all forms of malnutrition by 2030. Globally, nutrition-related factors contributed to about 45% of deaths in children under five years of age (Levels & Trends in Child Mortality, 2019), while it has been the primary risk factor in India, accounting for 68.2% of under-five deaths (Swaminathan et al., 2019). A malnourished child may lag in the learning process than the nourished children and might earn less income in adulthood, ultimately leading the person and the offspring to poor living standards. It creates a vicious circle of malnutrition that transmits from one generation to another. However, prolonged malnutrition with a widespread prevalence needs government intervention to break the vicious circle. According to the Lancet Nutrition series (2013), nutrition-specific interventions target the immediate determinants while other nutrition-sensitive interventions focus on underlying determinants. However, when a country is enduring a higher burden of malnutrition and consequential child deaths, it needs to focus on immediate determinants for an instantaneous amelioration of malnutrition in children. Given this, the study focused on evaluating the impact of a nutrition-specific program (Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)) and other immediate factors (child's dietary intake and mother's nutritional status) on child nutritional status in India. The empirical estimates revealed that ICDS services were able to increase the minimum dietary diversity (MDD) in the children's daily intake but failed to improve the anthropometric indicators of the children. Another anomaly in the result was that MDD in a child's intake did not improve the stunting. However, it had significantly reduced the wasting and underweight in some states. Furthermore, the mother's BMI and anemia status had a significant effect on the children's nutritional status, supporting the argument of inter-generational transfer of malnutrition. The study concludes that MDD could be improvised through ICDS services across all the states by reaching each child of the targeted age group. Also, the ICDS could facilitate strategies to track the nutritional status of the mother along with the child for a more effective outcome in child nutrition.