The first meeting of National Council on India's Nutrition Challenges under POSHAN Abhiyaan was held in New Delhi.
- The meeting was chaired by Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog.
National Council
- The Council has been set up under POSHAN Abhiyaan which acts an apex body to formulate overall policies, guide and monitor all nutrition based schemes.
- The mandate of the Council is:
- To provide policy directions to address India’s Nutrition Challenges through coordinated inter-sectoral action.
- To coordinate and review convergence among ministries.
- To review programmes for nutrition on a quarterly basis.
- The Council will submit its report to the Prime Minister every six months.
Objectives of the POSHAN Abhiyaan
The POSHAN Abhiyaan aims to target reduction in the level of under-nutrition and other related problems by ensuring convergence of various nutrition-related schemes. Its basic objective is to monitor and review the implementation of all such schemes. To implement that, the Abhiyaan seeks to utilize existing structural arrangements of line Ministries wherever available.Highlights of the meeting
Some important decisions were taken in the meeting which includes-- 235 additional districts have been confirmed as part of Phase II of POSHAN Abhiyaan in financial year 2018-19.
- These districts have been selected on the basis of the following criteria-
- The level of stunting
- Ensuring that all LWE and aspirational districts are included.
- Wherever a gap of 1 district was left to achieve saturation in the states/UTs
- 315 districts were already covered under phase-I of POSHAN Abhiyaan. The balance of 167 districts out of 718 districts will be covered in Phase III of the Abhiyaan.
- Some states have highlighted problems in procurement of tablets for Anganwadi supervisors. The issue was discussed at the meeting and it was decided that smartphones may be procured for Anganwadi supervisors instead of Tablets.
- The Vice Chairman of the Niti Aayog, Dr. Rajiv Kumar stressed on the need for ground level work and participation from all sectors, for converting the mission into Jan Andolan and achieving the goals.
- It was also mentioned in the meeting that Home-based Care for Young Child (HBYC) would be a crucial component of POSHAN Abhiyaan.
- In HBYC, ASHAs supported by Anganwadi workers (AWW) will visit the homes of children aged between 3 to 15 months and sensitive mothers on energy density and diet of child.
- The pilot project will be conducted in 10 districts for conditional cash transfer (CCT) through direct benefit transfer.
- States/UTs would continue their existing system of providing supplementary nutrition under Anganwadi services.
- To encourage Anganwadi workers to use mobile phones for real-time monitoring (ICT-RTM), incentive funds shall be provided for each Anganwadi worker per month. It will be linked to the achievements of certain targets.
- Centralized call centre will be established for monitoring, grievance redressal, and interventions.
- E-learning module has also been created for Anganwadi workers. Comprehensive Guidelines and Manuals are now available at State Level for all Abhiyaan Components.
- The first lot of 40 Swasth Bharat Preraks would be dispatched by the end of the month and would be available at District level to assist the staff in the smooth roll-out of the Abhiyaan.
- Under the POSHAN Abhiyaan, Swasth Bharat Preraks will be deployed one in each District. These Preraks would coordinate with District officials and enable fast and efficient execution of the Abhiyaan across the country.
- Swasth Bharat Preraks would function as a catalyst for fast-tracking the implementation of the Abhiyaan.
