Exempted u/s 80G of I.T. Act, India

Opening Hours : Mon to Sat - 9am to 6pm
  Contact : Call: 9990595502 | Whatsapp: +91-9990 59 5502

Comments Off on Poshan Abhiyaan : A healthcare Initiative

Poshan Abhiyaan : A healthcare Initiative

Posted by

PM Poshan Abhiyaan

  • POSHAN means Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment. Poshan Abhiyaan is also known as National Nutrition Mission and it was launched on International Women’s Day on 8th March, 2018.
  • The main purpose of Poshan Abhiyaan is to enhance the health status of children (0-6 years), adolescent girls, pregnant women, and lactating mothers.
  • The implementing body is the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India. The NITI Aayog also plays a significant role in the mission.
  • PM POSHAN is a scheme sponsored by the center and has been launched for a period of five years, from 2021-22 to 2025-26, with a initial corpus of Rs 1.31 trillion.

Targets of Poshan Abhiyaan

  • The POSHAN Abhiyaan objective is to make India a malnutrition-free country by 2022. 
  • The Abhiyaan targets to decrease stunting in children from 38.4 % to 25% by 2022.
  • The Abhiyaan targets to cut down stunting, under-nutrition, anemia annually by 2%, 2% and 3% respectively.
  • To reduce low birth weight by 2% annually.

Features of Pradhan Mantri Poshan Abhiyaan

  • Coverage: The Poshan Abhiyaan 2021 aims to benefit the children studying in 11.20 lakh schools in the country. In this scheme, mid-day meals have been provided to the children of Balvatika as well as the children studying in classes 1 to 8 in government and government-aided schools in the country.
  • Vocal for Local for Atma nirbhar Bharat: PM Poshan will include Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) and Women Self Help Groups in the execution of the scheme to support vocal for local and to realize the objectives of the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.
  • Social Audit: Social audits will be done for each school in every district for inspecting the implementation of the scheme.
  • Nutritional Garden (Poshan Vatika): It will promote the use of locally-grown nutritional food items from “school nutrition gardens” for boost the local economic growth and also provide additional micronutrients to the students.
  • Supplementary Nutrition: If a state or district having a high prevalence of anaemia, then this scheme has the provision to include any supplementary item. A state can include local vegetables or any other nutritional food with the centre’s approval.
  • Tithi Bhojan: It is a group participation program in which individuals provide special food to the children on occasions or festivals. The scheme has also incorporated the concept of Tithi Bhojan, in which the students of the private schools will be encouraged to share their meals with the children from the marginalized section of the society at least once a month voluntarily.
  • Nutrition Expert: A nutrition expert is to be assigned for each school whose duty is to regularly conduct check-ups such as – Body Mass Index (BMI), weight, hemoglobin levels, etc.
  • Poshan Tracker App: An App was launched to strengthen and bring transparency to nutrition delivery services. It provides real-time monitoring and tracking of all Anganwadi centres (AWC), Anganwadi workers (AWW), and beneficiaries.

Importance of Poshan Abhiyaan

  • The tagline of the PM Poshan Abhiyaan is Sahi Poshan Desh Roshan, which means that this program is intended to provide sufficient nutrition to infants, pregnant ladies, and lactating mothers.
  • Poshan Abhiyaan is a scheme that helps to eliminate the micronutrient and malnutrition problems among the targeted audience.
  • It also helps in achieving the targets of sustainable development goals such as zero poverty, no hunger, good health, and well-being, etc.
  • The POSHAN Abhiyaan is intended to draw the country’s attention towards the problem of malnutrition and addresses it in a mission mode.

National Nutrition Mission – Poshan Maah

The month of September is celebrated as POSHAN Maah since 2018 to improve nutritional outcomes for children, adolescent girls, pregnant women, and lactating mothers. The main idea was to create awareness about the nutritional importance among the people. The POSHAN MAAH is mainly based on antenatal care, optimal breastfeeding, anemia, growth monitoring.Under POSHAN maah over 120 million women, 60 million men, and 130 million children were reached out. It was a successful affair and reached more than 30 crore people in just 30 days.

Need to introduce millets in Poshan Abhiyaan

Millets include Jowar, Bajra, and Ragi are packed with a good amount of nutrients like proteins, fiber, vitamins, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and copper. They are powerhouse of antioxidants that give us impressive health benefits, making them an ideal choice for enhancing the nutritional status of children.India’s post-resolution to declare 2023 as the International Year of Millets has been adopted by the United Nations general assembly.

POSHAN 2.0

  • The Budget 2021-2022 announced Mission POSHAN 2.0 as an integrated nutrition support program. 
  • The mission POSHAN 2.0 will work on escalating nutritional content, outreach, delivery, and results by developing practices that enhance health, wellness, and immunity to disease and malnutrition.
  • The Ministry of Women and Child Development is the nodal ministry for celebrating POSHAN Maah under the POSHAN Abhiyaan