POSHAN Abhiyaan: 2nd meeting of National Council on India’s Nutrition Challenges held in New Delhi

Union Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) had organized 2nd meeting of National Council on India’s Nutrition Challenges under POSHAN Abhiyaan in New Dehli. It was chaired by NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar.

Key Highlights of Meeting

National Council approved inclusion of 32 new districts under POSHAN Abhiyaan in the current year. This will help to saturate all districts of Union Territories (UTs) that were left out under Phase-I and Phase-II. It will also provide full coverage to those states, where up to 5 districts had been left. Thus facilitating in saturation of 8 new States/UTs and taking total number of States/UTs covered under POSHAN Abhiyaan to 23. It also gave in-principle approval to guidelines for construction of anganwadi centres in urban areas and slums under aanganwadi services. During the meeting, WCD Ministry presented three modules from online course for nutrition developed with assistance of National Institute of Nutrition. These courses will be hosted independently by WCD Ministry and National Institute of Nutrition portals. It was also announced to celebrate month of September as National Nutrition Month every year.

POSHAN Abhiyaan

POSHAN Abhiyaan (Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition) was launched in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan in March 2018. It aims to ensure holistic development and adequate nutrition for pregnant women, mothers and children.
Targets: It aims to reduce level of under-nutrition and other related problems by ensuring convergence of various nutrition related schemes. It also targets stunting, under-nutrition, anaemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls) and low birth rate.
Components: Its large component involves gradual scaling-up of interventions supported by ongoing World Bank assisted Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project (ISSNIP) to all districts in the country by 2022. The Abhiyaan will monitor and review implementation of all such schemes and utilize existing structural arrangements of line ministries wherever available.

Month: Current Affairs - July, 2018