Lok Sabha Question No. 2172 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2023-12-15
Subject: SABLA Scheme
Ministry: WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: Raja Amareshwara Naik, Sukanta Majumdar, Vinod Kumar Sonkar, Bhola Singh, Jayanta Kumar Roy

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2272

TO BE ANSWERED ON 15.12.2023

## REGISTRATION OF ANGANWADI CENTRES ON POSHAN TRACKER-APP

## 2272    DR. G. RANJITH REDDY:

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

- (a) the status of implementation of Mission 'Poshan 2.0 in the country, especially in Telangana;;
- (b) the details of functioning of Poshan Tracker App;
- (c) whether all Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) have been registered on Poshan Tracker App;
- (d) if not, the details of AWCs not registered along with reasons therefor; and
- (e) the response of UNICEF, WHO, World Bank etc ,on Poshan Tracker App?

## ANSWER

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

- (a) Saksham  Anganwadi  and  Poshan  2.0  (Mission  Poshan  2.0)   is  an  integrated nutrition  support  programme,  to  strengthen  nutritional  content,  delivery,  outreach  and outcomes with focus on developing practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity to  disease  and  malnutrition.  Mission  Poshan  2.0  is  a  universal  self-selecting  scheme available to all the beneficiaries who enrol at the AWCs. The beneficiaries under this scheme  are  children  in  the  age  group  of  0-6  years,  pregnant  women  and  lactating mothers  and  Adolescent  Girls  between  14-18  years  (North  Eastern  States  and Aspirational Districts). Mission Poshan 2.0 is being implemented in all the 36 States/UTs covering all the districts of the country including the State of Telangana. Till date, 35,700 Anganwadi  Centres  and  22,28,359  beneficiaries  and  35,330  Adolescent  Girls  aged between 14-18 years (Aspirational Districts) are registered in the State of Telangana. Moreover, 93.36% beneficiaries are Aadhar verified.
- (b) to (d) IT systems have been leveraged to strengthen and bring about transparency  in  nutrition  delivery  support  systems  at  the  Anganwadi  centres.  The 'Poshan  Tracker'  application  was  rolled  out  on  1 st     March,  2021  as  an  important governance tool. The Poshan Tracker facilitates monitoring and tracking of all AWCs, AWWs and beneficiaries on defined indicators.  Technology under Poshan  Tracker  is being leveraged for dynamic identification of stunting, wasting, under-weight prevalence among children. Further, under POSHAN Abhiyaan, for the first time, a digital revolution

was ushered in when the Anganwadi Centres were equipped with mobile devices. The mobile application has also facilitated digitization and automation of physical registers used by AWWs that helps in improving their quality of work. Poshan Tracker is available in  22  languages  including  Hindi  and  English.  It  has  facilitated  near  real  time  data collection for Anganwadi Services such as, daily attendance, Provision of Hot Cooked Meal (HCM)/Take Home Ration (THR), Growth Measurement, ECCE, etc. The App also offers  counselling  videos  on  key  behaviours  and  services  which  help  disseminate messages on birth preparedness, delivery, post-natal care, breastfeeding and complementary feeding. Total 13.97 lakh Anganwadis, and 10.01 Crore beneficiaries are registered under the Poshan Tracker application as on 30 th  November 2023. Further, to ensure last  mile  tracking of  service  delivery SMS  alerts to  beneficiaries  have  been introduced  on  delivery  of  THR.  A  third  party  evaluation  of  all  Centrally  Sponsored Schemes in Women and Child Development Sector including Anganwadi services was conducted by NITI Aayog in 2020. The evaluation found the relevance of Anganwadi Services scheme satisfactory.

(e) UNICEF has appreciated the simplicity of Poshan Tracker application and how it has made the work of Anganwadi Workers easier; and ensured tracking of children and mothers on key health and nutrition related information.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has applauded the efforts made by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD) on Poshan Tracker mentioning the 'POSHAN Tracker'  as  one  of  the  exemplar  platforms  for  flawlessly  collecting  routine administrative data on nutrition.

During  the  G-20  Ministerial  Conference  on  Women  Empowerment,  Poshan Tracker was also showcased and discussed. All the members were greatly impressed by the same. Moreover, it was part of the chair's statement. The members recognized the importance of deployment of technology for monitoring nutrition and health services and early childhood care service delivery for pregnant women, lactating mothers, adolescent girls  and  children  and  took  note  of  the  Poshan  Tracker  application,  a  unique  digital platform which seeks to digitize data near-real time monitoring and enabling policies for targeted intervention.

*****