Commission released the 4th progress report on Poshan Abhiyaan.
Recently NITI Aayog has released the fourth progress report on POSHAN campaign.
POSHAN Abhiyaan (Prime Minister’s Comprehensive Scheme for Holistic Nutrition) campaign is the flagship program of the Central Government.
It aims to improve nutritional levels for children, pregnant women, lactating mothers and adolescents.
It is a mission based on coordination of more than one ministry. It focuses on accelerating India’s progress on malnutrition in a time bound manner.
This report assesses the implementation of the nutrition program and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nutrition and health services. Apart from this, it also provides information on the restoration status of service delivery across India.
Key findings of the report-
- The pace of utilization of funds allocated under the program is slow. Less than half of the funds have been utilized in 23 states and union territories.
- Funds have been under-utilised in states and union territories where mobile phone distribution and development monitoring devices are scarce.
- There has been an improvement in human resource, infrastructure and capacity building capacity as compared to the previous progress reports.
Recommendation-
- Along with expanding coverage, the quality of essential health and nutritional interventions must also be improved.
- This improvement can be done by continuing to strengthen the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), and other health related platforms.
- Convergence with key sectors should be increased to strengthen the social security of vulnerable families. There is a need for convergence with rural development, particularly through the Public Distribution System (PDS) for food and civil supplies and through the Mahatma Gandhi Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA).
- There is a need for state and district centric solutions. This will help in understanding the factors responsible for poor nutrition and identifying and addressing the challenges faced by the implementation of the programme.
Source- The Hindu
