POSHAN Abhiyaan

About the scheme

POSHAN Abhiyaan (also known as National Nutrition Mission) is a flagship programme of the Ministry of Women and Child Development that aims to improve nutrition amongst children, pregnant women, and lactating mothers.
Launched in 2018, it is a multi-ministerial convergence mission with the vision to ensure attainment of malnutrition free India by 2022.
The mission targets to reduce stunting, under-nutrition, anemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls) and reduce low birth weight by 2%, 2%, 3% and 2% per annum respectively.
The mission also strives to achieve a reduction in Stunting from 38.4% (NFHS-4) to 25% by 2022 (Mission 25 by 2022).

Significance

Amongst India’s most serious yet marginally addressed development challenges is malnutrition, which contributes significantly to the country’s disease burden.
Even as National Family Health Survey 5 (2019-21) data shows that the number of children under 5 years who are stunted (less height-for-age) in India has come down from 38.4% to 35.5% and the number of children who are underweight (less weight-for-age) has come down from 35.8% to 32.1%, every third child still suffers from chronic undernourishment, and every fifth child is acutely malnourished.
According to the NFHS-5, as many as 57% women aged 15-49 were anaemic in 2019-21.

Poshan Maah

To ensure community mobilisation and bolster people’s participation, every year the month of September is celebrated as Rashtriya Poshan Maah under POSHAN Abhiyaan across the country.
The activities in the Poshan maah are focussed on Social Behavioural Change and Counselling (SBCC). The broad themes are: antenatal care, optimal breastfeeding (early and exclusive), complementary feeding, anaemia, growth monitoring, girls’ education, diet, right age of marriage, hygiene, and sanitation, eating healthy and food fortification.

Why in News?

6th Rashtriya Poshan Maah begins today. Government is celebrating it throughout the month of September this year. The flagship initiative of the Central government, POSHAN Abhiyaan has been instrumental in advancing nutritional outcomes for pregnant women, lactating mothers, adolescent girls, and children under six years of age in a comprehensive manner.

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