Lok Sabha Question No. 1889 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2019-11-29
Subject: National Nutrition Mission
Ministry: WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: Kotha Prabhakar  Reddy, Dayakar Pasunoori, Reddeppa Nallakonda Gari

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1889

TO BE ANSWERED ON 29.11.2019

## NATIONAL NUTRITION MISSION

- 1889 . SHRI KOTHA PRABHAKAR REDDY: SHRI PASUNOORI DAYAKAR: SHRI N. REDDEPPA:

Will the Minister of WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Government is promoting the activities  of  the  National  Nutrition Mission  (NNM)  in  a  big  way  to  tackle  malnourishment  among  children  and utilising  the  resources  to  ensure  their  health  care  and  access  to  nutrition services  in  the  country,  if  so,  the  details  thereof  and  if  not,  the  reasons therefor;
- (b) whether  the  Government  authorities  and  the  public  at  large  should  work together  for  children's  nutrition  through  various  activities,  while  an  optimum utilization  of  resources  should  be  ensured  to  strengthen  the  institutions rendering child-centric services, to tackle the 40 per cent of children who are below  five  years  in  age  were  malnourished  in  the  country,  if  so,  the  details thereof  and  the  steps  being  taken  in  this  direction  and  results  yielded therefrom so far; and
- (c) the steps being taken by the Government to strengthen Anganwadi centres in each district  in  the  country  by  a  private  trust  as  part  of  the  NNM  activity  for improving  their  services  and  steps  being  taken  for  capacity  building  of Anganwadi workers and accredited social health activists particularly in rural areas of the country as a pilot project?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT ( SRIMATI SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI )

- (a) Government  is  implementing  the  POSHAN    Abhiyaan  since  18 th December, 2017 to address the problem of malnutrition in the country. The salient features of the Abhiyaan inter-alia includes ensuring convergence with various programmes;  incentivizing  States/  Union  Territories  for  achieving  targeted goals;  Information  and  Communication  Technology  enabled  Integrated  Child Development  Services-Common  Application  Software; Evaluation by NITI Aayog; Setting up of National Nutrition Resource  Centre (NNRC) at National level and  State Nutrition  Resource  Centre  (SNRC)  in  each  State/Union Territory;  Community  Mobilization  &  Behaviour  Change  &  Communication, Awareness Advocacy  and Information Education Communication; Jan Andolan by  educating  people  on  nutritional  aspects;  Innovation;  Strengthening  human resource;    measuring  height  and  weight  of  children  below  6  years  of  age  for early detection of stunting and wasting;  strengthening of Training & Capacity Building etc.
- (b) POSHAN Abhiyaan focuses on converting the agenda of improving nutrition into a  Jan  Andolan  through  wide  public  participation.  In  order  to  strengthen processes for community engagement, information dissemination and empowerment  of  beneficiaries, the POSHAN  Abhiyaan  provides  for  the organization of Community Based Events (CBEs) twice in a month on a fixed day  of  week  at  each  Anganwadi  Centre.    Under  Community  Based  Events, activities  like  Annaprasan  Diwas,  Suposan  Diwas  (specifically  focused  on orienting husbands), Celebrating coming of age- getting ready for pre-school at AWC, dissemination of messages related to public health for improvement of nutrition and to reduce illness are undertaken. Government has celebrated the month of September, 2019 as Rashtriya Poshan Maah across the country. The main  focus during the month was on five sutras i.e. First 1,000 days of a Child, Diarrhoea Prevention, Paushtik Aahaar, WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), and  Anaemia  Prevention.  During  the  month,  more  than  3.66  crore  activities were organized which inter-alia included home visits, community based events, Village  Health  Sanitation  and  Nutrition  Days,  Poshan  Melas,  Poshan  Rallies, school  based  activities,  anaemia  test-treat-talk  camps,  Panchayat  meetings, local leader meetings.

The results of the POSHAN Abhiyaan can be known after the programme has completed its approved period.  However, in the meantime, as per the report of Comprehensive  National  Nutrition  Survey  (CNNS)  conducted  by  UNICEF, prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight among children is 34.7%, 17% and 33.4% respectively, which is an improvement and reduction from the levels reported in National Family Health Survey-4.

- (c)      Ministry  of  Women  and  Child  Development  has  signed  a  Memorandum  of Understanding with Tata Trusts for providing the Swasth Bharat Preraks (SBPs) at  District  and  State  level.  Their  mandate  is  to  support  in  design,  planning, implementation,  and  monitoring  of  effective  and  successful  implementation  of the Abhiyaan. So far,346  SBPs have been provided by the Tata Trusts  which have been deployed in 337 districts of  32 States/UTs.

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