Lok Sabha Question No. 1497 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2023-07-28
Subject: Schemes for Children
Ministry: WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: Janardan Singh Sigriwal

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1497 TO BE ANSWERED ON 28.07.2023

## SCHEMES FOR CHILDREN

1497.  SHRI JANARDAN SINGH SIGRIWAL:

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

- (a) whether the Government has implemented various schemes for the betterment of children, especially for girl child in the country, if so, the details thereof, schemewise;
- (b) the details of the criteria, rules and regulations framed for implementation of these schemes;
- (c) whether the Government has also examined the use of Double Fortified Salt under various Women and Child Development (WCD) schemes to deal with the issue of anaemia among Mother and Child in the country; and
- (d) if so, the details thereof and the action taken by the Government for promoting use of Double Fortified Salt under these schemes?

## ANSWER

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

- (a)  &  (b)  :  The  Ministry  of  Women  and  Child  Development  is  implementing  various schemes through the States/UTs in a predefined cost sharing norms for the betterment of children including girl child in the country.  These include:
- I.          Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) : BBBP scheme under Sambal sub-scheme of Mission Shakti aims to prevent Gender biased sex selective elimination, to ensure survival and protection of girl child and also to ensure education of the girl child. The scheme has been expanded to cover all the districts of the country through multi-sectoral interventions  focused  on  zero-budget  advertising  and  encouraging  greater  spend  on activities that have on ground impact, e.g., promotion of sports among girls, self-defence camps, construction of girls toilets, making available sanitary napkin vending machines and sanitary pads  especially in educational institutions,  awareness  about PreConception & Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 (PC-PNDT Act, 1994) and skilling of girls etc.

The  scheme  is  100%  funded  by  the  Central  Government  and  the  funds  are  routed through  State  to  districts  for  multi-sectoral  interventions.  The  Union  Government  is implementing BBBP scheme on PAN India basis.  However, the state of West Bengal is not implementing BBBP scheme.

II.         Saksham Anganwadi and Mission Poshan 2.0 Scheme : The scheme aims to address Government's commitment to address the challenge of child malnutrition and maternal under-nutrition through a strategic shift in nutrition content and delivery and create conditions and a convergent eco-system to develop practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity. Components under Saksham Anganwadi have been reorganized in primary verticals :

- a.  Nutrition Support for POSHAN and for Adolescent Girls; Early Childhood Care and Education [3-6 years];
- b.  Anganwadi  Infrastructure  including  modern,  upgraded  Saksham  Anganwadis. Beneficiaries registered at AWCs are to be covered, viz., Children 6 months  - 6 years of age; Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers (PWLM) and Adolescent Girls (14-18 years) in Aspirational Districts and NER.
- c.  Poshan Abhiyaan

Anganwadi services (under Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0) provides the following  six  services  across  the  country  through  the  platform  of  Anganwadi  Centres (AWCs) to the eligible beneficiaries :

- i. Supplementary Nutrition (SNP)
- ii. Pre-school Non-formal Education,
- iii. Nutrition & Health Education,
- iv. Immunization,
- v. Health Check-up, and
- vi. Referral Services

Three  of  the  six  services,  viz.,  Immunization,  Health  check-up  and  Referral Services  are  related  to  health  and  are  provided  through  NHM  &  Public  Health Infrastructure. The Anganwadi Services is a universal self-selecting Scheme available to all the beneficiaries who enroll at the AWCs.  The beneficiaries under this scheme are children in the age group of 0-6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers.

The  details  of  supplementary  nutrition  provided  to  different  categories  of  the beneficiaries as per the norms for 300 days in a year are given as under :

|   S. No. | Categories                                    | Types of food                                                                                                                                          |
|----------|-----------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|        1 | Children (0-6 months)                         | Exclusive Breast feeding for first 6 months of life.                                                                                                   |
|        2 | Children (6-36 months)                        | Take Home Ration in the form that is palatable to the child. It could be given in the form of micro-nutrient fortified food and/or energy dense food . |
|        3 | 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.                                                  |
|        4 | Children (3-6 years)                          | Morning snack in the form of milk/banana/seasonal fruits etc. and Hot cooked Meal.                                                                     |

|   5 | Severely mal-nourished children (3-6 years)   | Additional 300 calories of energy and 8-10 gms. of Protein in the form of micro-nutrient fortified food and/or energy dense food .   |
|-----|-----------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|   6 | Pregnant women & Nursing mothers              | Take Home Ration in the form of micro-nutrient fortified food and/or energy dense food .                                             |

POSHAN Abhiyaan : POSHAN Abhiyaan aims   to address malnutrition issues across the  country  through  components  like  ICT  Application,  Convergence,  Community Mobilization,  Behavioural  Change  &  Jan  Andolan,  Capacity  Building,  Incentives  and Awards, and Innovations.  The Abhiyaan also aims at improving the nutritional status of Children  from  0-6  years,  Adolescent  Girls,  Pregnant  Women  and  Lactating  Mothers. POSHAN Abhiyaan focuses on convergence among partner Ministries leveraging    technology  and  Jan  Andolan  among  other  things,  to  address  issue  of malnutrition  comprehensively.  Near-real  time  reporting  by  field  functionaries  and improved MIS is aimed at smooth implementation of scheme and better service delivery.

The goals of POSHAN Abhiyaan are to achieve improvement in nutritional status of Children from 0-6 years, Adolescent Girls, Pregnant Women and   Lactating Mothers, in a time bound manner with fixed targets as under :

|   S. No. | Objective                                                                                          | Target   |
|----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------|
|        1 | Prevent and reduce Stunting in children (0- 6 years)                                               | @2% p.a. |
|        2 | Prevent and reduce under- nutrition (underweight prevalence) in children (0-6 years)               | @2% p.a. |
|        3 | Reduce the prevalence of anaemia among young Children(6-59 months)                                 | @3% p.a. |
|        4 | Reduce the prevalence of anaemia among Women and Adolescent Girls in the age group of 15-49 years. | @3% p.a. |
|        5 | Reduce Low Birth Weight (LBW).                                                                     | @2% p.a. |

The efforts under the Supplementary Nutrition Programme under Anganwadi Services and POSHAN Abhiyaan have been rejuvenated and converged as 'Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0' (Mission Poshan 2.0).  It seeks to address the challenges of  malnutrition  in  children,  adolescent  girls,  pregnant  women  and  lactating  mothers through a strategic shift in nutrition content and delivery and by creation of a convergent eco-system to develop and promote practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity.

Poshan 2.0 focuses on Maternal Nutrition, Infant and Young Child Feeding Norms, Treatment of Moderately Acute Malnourished/Severely Acute Malnourished children and Wellness  through  AYUSH.  It  rests  on  the  pillars  of  Convergence,  Governance,  and Capacity-building.  POSHAN  Abhiyaan  is  the  key  pillar  for  Outreach  and  will  cover innovations  related  to  nutritional  support,  ICT  interventions,  Media  Advocacy  and Research, Community Outreach and Jan Andolan. Steps have been taken to improve nutritional  quality  and  testing  in  accredited  labs,  strengthen  delivery  and  leverage technology  under  the  'Poshan  Tracker',  a  robust  ICT  enabled  platform  to  improve governance with regard to real time monitoring of provisioning of supplementary nutrition for prompt supervision and management of services.

All the States/UTs have been covered under the Abhiyaan and thus implementing the scheme to ensure a holistic approach.

III.      Mission Vatsalya Scheme : The Ministry is implementing a centrally sponsored scheme namely Mission Vatsalya Scheme to support the State and UT Governments for delivering services for Children in Need of Care and Protection (CNCP) and Children in Conflict with Law (CCL). The Child Care Institutions (CCIs) established under the scheme support inter-alia age-appropriate education, access to vocational training, recreation, health  care  and  counselling.  The  Ministry  regularly  follows  up  with  the  State/  UT Governments so as to ensure that CCIs adhere to the standards of care as per the Juvenile  Justice  (Care  and  Protection  of  Children)  Act,  2015  (as  amended  in  2021) provisions. Various advisories have been sent to all State/UT Governments regarding mandatory inspection of all CCIs.

(c)  &  (d)  :  Fortification  of  staple  food  items,  including  salt,  is  one  of  the  strategies  to address micronutrient deficiencies in addition to dietary diversification and   micronutrient supplementation along with other measures like infection control,   water and sanitation, etc. Therefore, in order to reduce the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies including anaemia,  emphasis  is  given  on  all  the  strategies  through  the  Schemes/programmes implemented by the various Departments/ Ministries. These include iron and folic acid supplementation, calcium supplementation, Vitamin-A supplementation, use of fortified food  items,  etc.   Ministry  has  issued  advisory  to  all  the  States/UTs  to  ensure  use  of relevant fortified food articles (wherever supplied), including Double Fortified Salt in the administration of the Supplementary Nutrition Programme.

Further, under Poshan 2.0, focus is on diet diversity, food fortification, leveraging traditional systems of knowledge and popularizing use of millets. Nutrition awareness strategies under Poshan 2.0 aim to develop sustainable health and well-being with focus on  local,  wholesome  foods  to  bridge  dietary  gaps  including  deficit  in  the  intake  of micronutrients. Also, as per the Scheme Guidelines, local foods and fresh produce (green vegetables, fruits, medicinal plants and herbs), fortified rice and mandatory incorporation of millets at least once a week in meals for different categories of beneficiaries to promote health, wellness and immunity and to manage anaemia.

In  order  to  address  the  issue  of  anaemia,  the  Government  has  approved  the supply of fortified rice (fortified with Iron, Vitamin B-12 and Folic Acid) throughout the Targeted  Public  Distribution  System  (TPDS)  under  the  National  Food  Security  Act (NFSA) and in Other Welfare Schemes of Government of India in all States and   Union Territories  (UTs)  in  a  phased  manner.  Under  Saksham  Anganwadi  and  Poshan  2.0, Fortified Rice is allocated to all the States/UTs.

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