Government of india strengthen the Priority To Malnutrition Issues

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Last Updated26/03/2022

Child malnutrition is a chronic problem and a longstanding challenge for the public administration of India.
The first National Family Health Survey (NFHS) in 1992-1993 found that India was one of the worst performing countries on child health indicators.

Anganwadi Services under the Umbrella ICDS Scheme (earlier known as ICDS) was launched in 1975.
The Scheme represents one of the world’s largest and unique programmes for early childhood care and development.
It is the foremost symbol of the country’s commitment to its children and nursing mothers.
It is an initiative for:

Providing pre-school non-formal education.
Breaking the vicious cycle of malnutrition, morbidity, reduced learning capacity and mortality on the other.

The beneficiaries under this scheme are children in the age group of 0-6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers.

To improve the nutritional and health status of children in the age-group of 0-6 years.
To lay the foundation for proper psychological, physical and social development of the child.
To reduce the incidence of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition and school dropouts.
To achieve effective coordination of policy and implementation amongst the various departments to promote child development.
To enhance the capability of the mother to look after the normal health and nutritional needs of the child through proper nutrition and health education.

Provides 3 services: Immunization, Health check-up and Referral Services related to health.

Children (0-6 months) - Exclusive Breastfeeding for first 6 months of life.
Children (6-36 months) - Take Home Ration containing 500 calories of energy and 12-15 gms of protein in the form that is palatable to the child.
Severely mal-nourished children(6-36 months) - Same type of food as above with food supplement of 800 calories of energy and 20-25 gms. of Protein.
Children (3-6 years) - Morning snack in the form of milk/banana/seasonal fruits etc. and Hot cooked Meal.
Severely mal-nourished children(3-6 years) - Additional 300 calories of energy and 8-10 gms. of Protein in the form of micronutrient fortified food and/or energy dense food.
Pregnant women & Nursing mothers - Take Home Ration in the form of micronutrient fortified food and/or energy dense food.

Launched on 8th March 2018.
Aim: to achieve improvement in nutritional status of Children under 6 years, Adolescent Girls, Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers in a time bound manner by adopting a synergised and result oriented approach.
Poshan 2.0, an integrated nutrition support programme which subsumes Supplementary Nutrition Programme and POSHAN Abhiyaan.

Steps have also been taken to improve nutritional quality and testing, strengthen delivery and leverage technology under Poshan Tracker, a robust ICT enabled platform.
It will improve governance with regard to real time monitoring and provisioning of supplementary nutrition for prompt supervision and management of services.
The Abhiyaan empowers Anganwadi workers and Lady Supervisors by providing them with smartphones, and Growth Monitoring Devices (comprising of Stadiometer, Infantometer, Weighing Scale for Infant and Mother & Child).