Additional nutritious food for women and children in AWCs

The children, pregnant and nursing mothers and adolescent girls will be provided with additional nutritious food in different Anganwadi Centres across Odisha from July 15, official sources said.

Chief Secretary A P Padhi directed the district collectors yesterday to keep a strict vigil over the quality and quantity of nutritious foodstuff supplied to various categories of beneficiaries and implement the revised menu in letter and sprit, the sources said.

According to Women and Child Development secretary Anu Garg, the hot cooked meal served in AWCs to the children between age group of 3 to 6 will have at least five eggs per week per child.

In addition to this, the new menu for morning snacks include ragi & besan ladoo on Monday and Thursday, groundnut, chuda ladoo on Tuesday and Thursday and sprouted moong with jaggery or seasonal fruits on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The Take Home Ration (THR) for children in the age group of 6 months to 3 years has been revised to 12 eggs, 1.5 kg of dry ration consisting of suji/ragi/maize/besan/sugar and 2.45 kg of chhatua per month, she said.

Similarly, the THR for pregnnant women and nursing mother per month has been revised to 12 eggs, 25 chikki or ladoo made of groundnut/rasi/jiggery (each piece of 24.4 gm) and 4.9 kg of chhatua, she said.

The adolescent girls in the age group of 11-14 will get 16 eggs, 4 kg of chhatua and 25 pieces of ladoo, she said.

The revised menu for severely underweight children in the age group of 6 months to 3 years includes 12 eggs along with 83 pieces of ladu and 4.9 kgs of chhatua while THR for severely underweight children in 3 to 6 years includes hot cooked meals and morning snacks at AWC daily along with additional 1.8 kg of chhtua and 42 pieces of ladu as THR per month, an official release said.

She made it clear to the officials that the dry ration and chhatua THR should be supplied once in each month and boiled eggs should be supplied in each week.

Around 46.29 lakh children and pregnant mother and 55,568 adolescent girls will be benefited by the new menu.