235 districts to be covered in Phase-II of POSHAN Abhiyaan

The government will cover 235 districts in the second phase of its POSHAN Abhiyaan which aims to reduce stunting, under-nutrition, anemia among children, women and adolescent girls along with reducing low birth weight in the country.

The decision was taken in the first meeting of the National Council on India's Nutrition Challenges under the POSHAN Abhiyaan, chaired by Rajiv Kumar, the vice chairman of NITI Aayog, held here today.

Regarding the direct transfer of funds to states and UTs to frontline functionaries, instead of creation of a corpus fund, it was decided that the matter would be examined in consultation with the Finance Ministry, an official statement said.

During the meeting it was decided that a pilot would be conducted in 10 districts for conditional cash transfer (CCT) through direct benefit transfer and the states/UTs would continue their existing system of providing supplementary nutrition under anganwadi services.

Kumar stressed on the need for ground-level work and participation from all sectors, for converting the mission into a mass movement and achieving the goals. He called for feedback and suggestions from members and state and district-level officers in implementing the mission.

Some states had highlighted problems in procurement of tablets for anganwadi supervisors and the issue was discussed in the meeting and it was decided that smartphones might be procured instead.

Vinod Paul, member, NITI Aayog in his address highlighted that the focus was on the first 1,000 days of a child and preventive care for adolescent girls, women and mothers.

He also said home-based care for young child(HBYC) would be a crucial component of POSHAN Abhiyaan. In HBYC, accredited social health activists (ASHAs) supported by anganwadi workers would visit the homes of children aged between 3 to 15 months and sensitise mothers on energy density and diet of child.

"315 districts have already been covered under phase-I of the programme and 235 districts will be covered in the second phase," the statement said.

POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched on March 8 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Jhunjhunu. The initiative targets to reduce stunting, under-nutrition, anemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls) and reduce low birth weight by 2 per cent, 2 per cent, 3 per cent and 2 per cent per annum respectively.

The target of the mission was to bring down stunting among children in the age group 0-6 years from 38.4 to 25 per cent by 2022.