Poshan Abhiyan

27/09/2022

521 3 minutes read

Topic- Government Policies and Interventions [GS Paper-2]

Context- About 4.37 lakh Anganwadi Centres have set up Poshan Vatikas under various interventions of the Ministry of Women and Child Development jointly (MWCD) with the Ministry of Ayush.

Key Highlights

The 5th edition of Rashtriya Poshan Maah is being celebrated from 1st to 30th September 2022 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
With the main focus on “Mahila aur Swasthya ” and “Bacha aur Shiksha ”, Poshan Maah is to be seen as Poshan Panchayat through Gram Panchayats.
Under ongoing Poshan Maah 2022, various steps for setting-up Poshan Vatikas with backyard poultry and fishery units are being taken across the country.
So far, 1.10 lakh medicinal saplings have also been planted across some of the selected districts of 6 States.

Poshan Maah

The Rashtriya Poshan Maah is celebrated during the month of September every year under POSHAN Abhiyaan.
It includes activities which focus on antenatal care, optimal breastfeeding, anemia, growth monitoring, girls’ education, diet, right age of marriage, hygiene and sanitation and healthy diet.
The activities are based on Jan Andolan Guidelines which deals with social and Behavioural Change Communication (SBCC).
SBCC means the strategic utilisation of communication approaches to promote changes in knowledge, attitudes, norms, beliefs and behaviours.

Poshan Vatika

Poshan Vatika is a small piece of land where the people of the house grow vegetables so that all in the family specially children and women should not become victims of mal-nutrition.
Its main objective is to secure supply of nutrition through organically home-grown vegetables and fruits and at the same time ensuring that the soil must also remain healthy.
Plantation drives for Poshan Vatikas will be engrossed by all the stakeholders in the space available at anganwadis, school premises and gram panchayats.

Poshan Abhiyan

POSHAN Abhiyaan stands for Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition (POSHAN) Abhiyaan also known as National Nutrition Mission and it was launched by the government on March 8, 2018.
The Abhiyaan targets to reduce stunting, undernutrition, anemia and reduce low birth weight by 2%, 2%, 3% and 2% per annum respectively.
The aim of the mission is to bring down stunting among children between the age group 0-6 years from 38.4% to 25% by 2022.
POSHAN Abhiyaan ensures service delivery and interventions by using advanced technology, behavioural change through convergence and also it lays-down specific targets to be achieved across different monitoring parameters.
Under the Mission, Swasth Bharat Preraks to be placed as one in each district for coordinating with district officials and enabling fast and efficient execution of the Abhiyaan across the country. Swasth Bharat Preraks will also function as a catalyst for fast tracking the implementation of the Abhiyaan.

POSHAN 2.0

The government has merged various programmes with similar objectives such as Supplementary Nutrition Programme and POSHAN Abhiyaan under one framework named as Mission POSHAN 2.0 in order to create synergies in operations and adopt an integrated approach in the nutrition services mechanism.
The POSHAN 2.0 Abhiyaan ensures concurrence of all nutrition related schemes of the Ministry of Women and Child Development on the target population.
The Abhiyaan will also ensure convergence of certain other programmes.
Software based tracking of nutritional status will be done through ICDS-CAS.
The Abhiyaan will act as a Jan Andolan where mass involvement of people is desired.
A community-based event will also be organised once a month in order to create awareness and address issues.
Front line workers will be given incentives for better performance.
Incremental Learning Approach to be adopted to train 21 thematic modules and the training will be given by Master Trainers to front line workers.
A call centre will be set up for providing assistance to public grievances.

Importance of Poshan Abhiyan

According to NFHS-5 in the period of 2019-21, 35.5% of children below five years were stunted and 32.1% were underweight.
It shows the highest spike in anaemia was reported among children aged 6-59 months from 67.1% (NFHS-5) from 58.6% (NFHS-4, 2015-16).
Also the Global Nutrition Report (GNR, 2021) shows that India has made no progress on anaemia and childhood wasting.
Over 17% of Indian children under 5 years of age are affected by childhood wasting.
Human capital consists of the knowledge, skills, and health that people accumulate over their lives, enabling them to realize their potential as productive members of society and India ranks 116 among 180 countries in the Human Development Index.
Hence certain government intervention like the POSHAN Abhiyaan is a must for the development of human capital in the country.

Way Forward

Growth driven measures are important to address the perennial issues of malnutrition and food insecurity in the country.
The necessary step is to make structured, time-bound and location-specific strategies with due consideration to the effects of socioeconomic factors and impact of the pandemic.
It is also important to formulate a comprehensive approach that will address the different sectors and dimensions of nutrition.