The third meeting of National Council on India’s Nutrition Challenges as part of Poshan Abhiyan, was held at New Delhi today. The Meeting was Chaired by Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, Dr. Rajiv Kumar. Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Sanjay Gandhi; Minister for Health and Family Welfare, J.P Nadda; Minister of State (IC) for Child Development and Nutrition, Uttar Pradesh, Anupma Jaiswal, Secretary, Health & Family Welfare, Preeti Sudan; Secretary AYUSH, Shri Rajesh Kotecha; Secretary WCD, Shri Rakesh Shrivastava, other representatives of stakeholder Ministries like M/o Drinking Water and Sanitation, M/o Food & Public Distribution and representatives of States of Chattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar among others were present at the meeting.Speaking at the event, Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi welcomed the decision taken by the Prime Minister to increase honorarium to Anganwadi workers. She said that now the thrust should be to move faster in achieving a Malnutrition free India and appealed for more focus on nutritious food that should be fed to the Children and beneficiaries of the mission. The WCD Minister underscored the fact that management of SAM children and giving proper food to the children are central to reducing malnutrition in India.
Delivering the Key note address at the event, Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairperson NITI Aayog said that a lot remains to be done to make India malnutrition free and hence there is a need to keep the momentum generated by poshan maah as part of Poshan Abhiyan, going on. He said that it should be everybody’s top most priority. He also observed that there is hugely varied performance across states in the Poshan Mission. Dr. Rajiv Kumar also urged the stakeholders to ensure earliest possible distribution of smart phones to the ICDS frontline workers to increase CAS penetration for monitoring growth of children.The Meeting Discussed Action Taken Report on the recommendations of the last National Council Meeting and the brief on POSHAN MAAH outcomes, Specifications of smart phones and growth monitoring devises, third Party outcome based evaluation of Poshan Abhiayan, roll out of e-ILA (e-incremental learning approach- Technology developed to support the field functionaries to improve their knowledge and skills in an ongoing incremental manner) and many other issues concerning effective implementation of Poshan Abhiyan.