Poshan Maah

In News

• The month of September every year is celebrated as the Rashtriya Poshan Maah or the National Nutrition Month across the country.

About

• Key themes of Poshan Maah 2022: The activities during the month will be centred on key themes like 
  • Mahila and Swasthya, 
  • Bachcha and Shiksha – Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi, 
  • gender-sensitive water conservation and management, and 
  • traditional food for women and children in tribal areas.
• Disseminating Messages: The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) is leveraging this occasion to intensively disseminate key messages to all intended beneficiaries on positive nutritional behaviours and practices. 
• Building Convergences: The Ministry is also actively looking at building convergences with other line departments at the state level and enhancing participation by ASHA, and Anganwadi Workers in the Village Organization meetings. 

Significance of POSHAN Maah

• It is promoting community mobilisation through people’s participation for addressing malnutrition amongst young children and women.
• The initiative is ensuring health and nutrition for everyone.

Poshan Abhiyaan / National Nutrition Mission (NNM)

• Launched in 2018
• Government of India’s flagship programme to improve nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers. 
• Implementing agency: the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India. 
• Main Components: People’s participation (Jan Andolan) and community mobilization are essential components of this endeavour. 
• Funding:
  • NNM is funded by Government Budgetary Support (50%) and 50% by IBRD (World Bank) or other multilateral development banks (MDB). 
  • Government budgetary support is further divided into 60:40 between Centre and States/UTs, 90:10 for NER and Himalayan States and 100% for UTs without a legislature. 
• Targets:
  • NNM targets to reduce-
    • Stunting by 2% per annum, 
    • Undernutrition by 2% per annum, 
    • anemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls) by 3% per annum and 
    • Low birth weight by 2% per annum. 
  • Although the target to reduce Stunting is at least 2% p.a., Mission would strive to achieve reduction in Stunting from 38.4% (NFHS-4) to 25% by 2022 (Mission 25 by 2022).
• Converting into Jan Bhagidari: The Ministry of Women & Child Development aims to convert this Jan Andolan into a Jan Bhagidari by activating Poshan Panchayats in villages and making the Gram Panchayats and the Sarpanch the fulcrum of activities.

POSHAN Tracker App

• The Ministry of Women and Child Development has rolled out a Poshan Tracker application. 
• Goal: To follow nutrition systems strengthening approach for improving maternal and child undernutrition, focused on strengthening implementation bottlenecks at all levels. 
• Centralized data architecture: It is built using centralized data architecture that also aligns with the digital technology systems of other ministries and programs. 
• Purpose: 
  • To provide a 360-degree view of the activities of the Anganwadi Centre (AWC), service deliveries of Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) and complete beneficiary management for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children. 
  • The proposed system should enable real-time monitoring and tracking of all AWCs, AWWs and beneficiaries on the defined indicators. 

• Not for Public: The App is meant for Anganwadi workers, Anganwadi centers to enter beneficiaries data in the forms. It is not at all developed for the general public.

Source: PIB