Join us in celebrating Rashtriya POSHAN Maah from 1st – 30th September, 2023 theme is “Suposhit Bharat, S akshar Bharat, Sashakt Bharat,”, 2023
After the colonial period and post-independence, India struggled a lot to become a developing nation. Among those, fighting to beat poverty was a major thing. Currently, India fell from its incidence of poverty rate from 55% in 2005- 06 to 16% in 2019-21. India became one among 25 nations that have successfully halved their global multidimensional poverty index values within 15 years. The country has lifted a staggering 415 million people out of poverty demonstrating significant progress in improving living conditions. This was achieved by the strenuous efforts of the Government and their officials in implementing various health programs.
Nutrition index was also deprived due to poverty or unhealthy food supplies. To enable proper nutrition to all, the Government launched many programs.
Poshan Abhiyan Scheme
Poshan Abhiyaan, launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on 8th March 2018, has been instrumental in ensuring people’s participation and bringing the discourse on nutrition to the forefront. Poshan Abhiyan was launched with an overall budget of Rs 9046 crore for 3 years to benefit over 10 crore people. POSHAN (Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition) Abhiyaan aims to address the challenge of malnutrition in a missionmode. Behavioural change at individual and community level is an important component to achieve the desired goals of a Kuposhan-mukt Bharat. The central govt. wants to associate a large number of people with Poshan Abhiyaan to turn it into a mass campaign (Jan Andolan).
Focusing on the aims of POSHAN Abhiyaan, Mission Poshan 2.0 (Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0) has been launched as an integrated nutrition support program to strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach and outcomes with focus on developing practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity to disease and malnutrition. Poshan Abhiyaan overall intends to increase nutritional awareness and responsiveness among mothers of young children, adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women, family members including husbands, father, mothers-in-law and community members, health care providers (ANM, ASHA, Anganwadi worker) about vital nutrition behaviours.
Every year, Poshan Pakhwada is celebrated in the month of March for 15 days. Similarly, the month of September is celebrated as Rashtriya Poshan Maah, across the country. The Poshan Maah and Pakhwada celebrated so far have witnessed wide participation and enthusiasm from all States/UTs, frontline functionaries, converging Ministries as well as public at large.
Rashtriya POSHAN MAAH
The Rashtriya Poshan Maah is being celebrated during the month of September every year and serves as a platform to bring focus to the discourse of nutrition and good health. Poshan Maah is launched to identify malnourished children across all districts and provide them care and nutrition in a targeted manner.
The theme of this year’s Poshan Pakhwada 2023 was “Nutrition for All: Together Towards a Healthy India”. With the declaration of 2023 as the International Year of Millets, this year the focus of Poshan Pakhwada was popularised on ‘Shree Anna’- the mother of all grains, as an asset to address malnutrition. The objective of the Poshan Maah is to ensure community mobilisation and bolster people’s participation for addressing malnutrition amongst young children, and women and to ensure health and nutrition for everyone.
The Ministry of Women and Child Development, being the nodal Ministry for POSHAN Abhiyan, is celebrating the Poshan Maah in convergence with partner Ministries and departments, at National, States/UTs, Districts, and grass root level.
The activities will be organised with the following key objectives:
• Spreading Awareness about Nutrition at the Grassroot level
• Conduct Sensitization Drive to make citizens aware of the importance of nutrition.
• Identification and Outreach programmes for pregnant and lactating women
• Awareness Drives, Camps and Fairs for children below six years and adolescent girls
• Highlight objectives of ‘Swasth Bharat’ and plan activities to sensitize citizens about it.
POSHAN MAAH 2022
Last year it was focussed on “Mahila aur Swasthya” and “Bacha aur Shiksha”.
• The month-long event witnessed intensive activities across the country for awareness about nutrition at the ground level through sensitization drives, outreach programmes, identification drives, camps, and fairs with special focus on pregnant and lactating women, children below six years and adolescent girls, in order to realise the vision of ‘Swasth Bharat’.
• At the Panchayat level, awareness activities conducted by local functionaries under the guidance of the concerned District Panchayati Raj Officers and CDPOs.
• Awareness drives on Anganwadi Services and good health practices were also organised. Growth Measurement drives were conducted to bring more beneficiaries under the ambit of Anganwadi Services. Health camps for anaemia check-ups were especially organised at AWCs for adolescent girls.
• Further, land identified for Nutri-Gardens or Poshan Vatikas at or near Anganwadi Centres (AWCs).
• Special focus given on the importance of rainwater conservation among women at Anganwadi centres and on traditional foods in tribal areas for healthy mother and child.
• Under the State – level activities, ‘Amma ki Rasoi’ or Grandmother’s Kitchen of traditional nutritious recipes was organised.
• In States/UTs, women and child development depts. through Anganwadi workers and helpers and health and family welfare departments through ASHA, ANM, primary health centres, community health centres, school education and literacy department through schools, Panchayati Raj departments through panchayats and rural development through self-help groups etc. carried out various thematic activities and spread the message of the importance of holistic nutrition throughout the month to ensure a healthier future for women and children.
POSHAN TRACKER
The Ministry of Women and Child Development has rolled out Poshan Tracker application. The goal is to follow nutrition systems strengthening approaches for improving maternal and child undernutrition. The system provides a digital identity to each beneficiary through a digital card and allows convergence of call centres with the technology platform. The system generates automated alerts to the critical last-mile beneficiaries. It also ensures efficient audit of the delivery system, by documenting real time attendance of beneficiaries and duty bearers.
• The purpose of POSHAN Tracker application is to provide a 360-degree view of the activities of the Anganwadi Centre (AWC), service deliveries of Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) and complete beneficiary management for pregnant women, lactating mothers, and children.
• Poshan Tracker App is meant for Anganwadi workers, Anganwadi centres to enter beneficiaries data in the forms. It is not at all developed for the general public.
Rashtriya Poshan Maah serves as a platform to bring focus to the discourse of nutrition and good health. We can support the efforts of the Government in implementing this project thereby eliminating Poverty for a better developed nation INDIA.
“BE SEPTEMBER MARKED AS
NUTRITION MONTH FOR HEALTHY
INDIA”.
