About ICDS

• Launched on 2nd October, 1975, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme represents one of the world’s largest and unique programmes for early childhood care and development. 
• It is implemented by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

Beneficiaries

• • The scheme is targeted at 
• children upto the age of 6 years, 
• pregnant and lactating mothers and
• women 16–44 years of age.
• The scheme is aimed to improve the health, nutrition and education of the target community.

Services under ICDS

• The ICDS Scheme offers a package of six services, viz.
  • Supplementary Nutrition
  • Pre-school non-formal education
  • Nutrition & health education
  • Immunization
  • Health check-up and
  • Referral services

Provision for Take-Home Ration  

• An important component of ICDS is the Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP).
• It aims to fill the gap in nutrition in children under six as well as pregnant and lactating women. The SNP’s target is to provide hot cooked meals to children 3-6 years who come to the centre daily for preschool classes and micronutrient-fortified and energy-dense food for children 6-36 months and pregnant and lactating women. 
• This food is distributed once a month for the mother to take home and use and hence the term Take-Home Ration (THR). The programme stipulates that THR should meet 50% of the daily recommended dietary allowance per beneficiary.

Mid-Day Meal Scheme 

• The Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) is considered as the world’s largest school meal programme and reaches an estimated 12 crore children across 12 lakh schools in India.
• In 1925, a Mid Day Meal Programme was first introduced for disadvantaged children in Madras Municipal Corporation. At National level, the MDMS emerged out of the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP–NSPE), a centrally sponsored scheme formulated in 1995 to improve enrollment, attendance and retention by providing free food grains to government run primary schools. 
• In 2002, the Supreme Court directed the government to provide cooked mid day meals in all government and government aided primary schools.

Objectives of the programme

• The key objectives of the MDMS are to 
  • address the issues of hunger and education in schools by serving hot cooked meals; 
  • improve the nutritional status of children 
  • improve enrollment, attendance and retention rates in schools and other education centres
  • improve socialisation among castes
  • empower women through employment

Key aspects of the scheme

• MDMS guarantees one meal to all children studying in Government, Local Body and Government-aided primary and upper primary schools and the Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) and Alternative and Innovative Education (AIE) centres including Madarsa and Maqtabs supported under under Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (an overarching programme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development), and National Child Labour Project schools run by the ministry of labour. 
• The calorific value of a mid-day meal at upper primary stage has been fixed at a minimum of 700 calories and 20 grams of protein by providing 150 grams of food grains (rice/wheat) per child/school day. 
• The cost of the MDMS is shared between the central and state governments. The central government provides free food grains to the states. The cost of cooking, infrastructure development, transportation of food grains and payment of honorarium to cooks and helpers is shared by the centre with the state governments. 
• Students up to Class VIII are guaranteed one nutritional meal at least 200 days in a year. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Puducherry have even extended the scheme to Class IX and X. 
• The Scheme comes under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (now renamed as the Ministry of Education).

Why in News?

• In a bid to combat chronic anaemia and undernutrition, the government is making plans to distribute fortified rice through the Integrated Child Development Services and Mid-Day Meal schemes across the country from next year, with a special focus on 112 aspirational districts.
• Fortifying rice involves grinding broken rice into powder, mixing it with nutrients, and then shaping it into rice-like kernels using an extrusion process. These fortified kernels are then mixed with normal rice in a 1:100 ratio, and distributed for consumption.
• A pilot scheme to distribute fortified rice through the Public Distribution System in 15 districts was approved in February 2019 for a three-year period. 
• However, only five States — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh — have started the distribution of fortified rice in their identified pilot districts. The remaining 10 States have only now identified their respective districts, and will soon start distribution.

What is Fortification of Food?

• Fortification is the addition of key vitamins and minerals such as iron, iodine, zinc, Vitamin A & D to staple foods such as rice, milk and salt to improve their nutritional content. These nutrients may or may not have been originally present in the food before processing.

Why do we need Fortification of Food?

• 70% of people in India do not consume enough micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals. 
• According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) 2015-16:
  • 58.4 percent of children (6-59 months) are anaemic
  • 53.1 percent women in the reproductive age group are anaemic
  • 35.7 percent of children under 5 are underweight
• Thus, deficiency of micronutrients or micronutrient malnutrition, also known as “hidden hunger”, is a serious health risk. 
• Fortification method complements other ways to improve nutrition such as diversification of diet and supplementation of food.

What are the benefits of Fortification?

• Since the nutrients are added to staple foods that are widely consumed, this is an excellent method to improve the health of a large section of the population, all at once.
• Fortification is a safe method of improving nutrition among people. The addition of micronutrients to food does not pose a health risk to people. The quantity added is so small and so well regulated as per prescribed standards that likelihood of an overdose of nutrients is unlikely.
• It does not require any changes in food habits and patterns of people. It is a socio-culturally acceptable way to deliver nutrients to people.
• It does not alter the characteristics of the food—the taste, the feel, the look.
• It can be implemented quickly as well as show results in improvement of health in a relatively short period of time.
• This method is cost-effective especially if advantage is taken of the existing technology and delivery platforms. The Copenhagen Consensus (a US non-profit think tank) estimates that every 1 Rupee spent on fortification results in 9 Rupees in benefits to the economy. 

Food Fortification in India

• In October 2016, FSSAI operationalized the Food Safety and Standards (Fortification of Foods) Regulations, 2016 for fortifying staples namely 
  • Wheat Flour and Rice with Iron, Vitamin B12 and Folic Acid, 
  • Milk and Edible Oil with Vitamins A and D and 
  • Double Fortified Salt with Iodine and Iron 

• The ‘+F’ logo has been notified to identify fortified foods. 

Reference:

1. https://vikaspedia.in/health/nutrition/fortification-of-food
2. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/centre-to-extend-fortified-rice-scheme-to-112-districts/article33016045.ece