Poshan Abhiyan (erstwhile National Nutrition Mission) was launched in March 2018 to achieve improvement in nutritional status of children from 0-6 years, Adolescent Girls, Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers in a time bound manner and to achieve reduction in stunting and wasting in children (0-6 years) as well as reduction in anemia in women, children and adolescent girls.
The Abhiyaan has been rolled out in all the 36 States/UTs including the state of Tamil Nadu and Odisha. The key components of the Scheme include use of technology, convergence and behaviour change communication through Jan Andolan.
Another key plank of the Abhiyaan to enable the right kind of nourishment are the PoshanVatikas or Nutri-gardens that are being set up across the country to provide easy and affordable access to fruits, vegetables, medicinal plants and herbs.
Poshan Abhiyan has now been re-aligned as part of Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0, along with Anganwari services and revised Scheme for adolescent Girls. It seeks to strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach and outcomes with focus on developing practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity to disease and malnutrition.
It rests on the key pillars of Maternal Nutrition, Infant and Young Child Feeding Norms, Treatment of SAM/MAM and wellness through AYUSH. 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 through regional meal plans to bridge dietary gaps. Further, greater emphasis is being given on the use of millets for preparation of Hot Cooked Meal and Take Home rations (not raw ration) at Anganwari centres for Pregnant Women, Lactating Mothers and Children below 6 years of age, as millets have high nutrient content which includes protein, essential fatty acid, dietary fibre, B-Vitamins, minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc, folic acid and other micro-nutrients thus helping to tackle anemia and other micro-nutrient deficiencies in women and children.
Further, under Mission Poshan 2.0, only fortified rice is being allocated to States/UTs. 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.
Poshan Abhiyan is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme with the implementation of the scheme being done by States/UTs. To ensure that all Anganwari Centres are equipped with Smart phones and Growth Monitoring devices (GMDs) such as Infantometer, Stadiometer, Weighing Scale for Mother and Infant, the Ministry has released revised guidelines for technical specifications and replacement of GMDs by the States.
