Ministry of Women and Child Development has issued Operational Guidelines regarding implementation of ‘Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0'. The scheme has been approved by the Government of India for implementation during the 15th Finance Commission period 202l-22 to 2025-26.
Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 is an Integrated Nutrition Support Programme.
It seeks to address the challenges of malnutrition in children, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers through a strategic shift in nutrition content and delivery and by creation of a convergent eco-system to develop and promote practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity.
With a view to address various gaps and shortcomings in the on-going nutrition programme and to improve implementation as well as to accelerate improvement in nutrition and child development outcomes, the existing scheme components have been re-organized under Poshan 2.0 into the primary verticals given below:
Nutrition Support for POSHAN through Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP) for children of the age group of 06 months to 6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers (PWLM);
and for Adolescent Girls in the age group of 14 to 18 years in Aspirational Districts and North Eastern Region (NER);
Early Childhood Care and Education [3-6 years] and early stimulation for (0-3 years);
Anganwadi Infrastructure including modern, upgraded Saksham Anganwadi; and Poshan Abhiyaan
To contribute to human capital development of the country;
Address challenges of malnutrition;
Promote nutrition awareness and good eating habits for sustainable health and wellbeing; and
Address nutrition related deficiencies through key strategies.
Poshan 2.0 shall focus on Maternal Nutrition, Infant and Young Child Feeding Norms, Treatment Protocols for SAM/MAM and Wellness through AYUSH practices to reduce wasting and under-weight prevalence besides stunting and anemia, supported by the ‘Poshan Tracker’, a new, robust ICT centralised data system which is being linked with the RCH Portal (Anmol) of MoHFW.
Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 (hereinafter referred to as Poshan 2.0) is an Integrated Nutrition Support Programme.
It seeks to address the challenges of malnutrition in children, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers through a strategic shift in nutrition content and delivery and by creation of a convergent ecosystem to develop and promote practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity.
Poshan 2.0 shall focus on Maternal Nutrition, Infant and Young Child Feeding Norms, Treatment of MAM/SAM and Wellness through AYUSH.
It will rest on the pillars of Convergence, Governance, and Capacity-building.
Poshan Abhiyan will be the pillar for Outreach and will cover innovations related to nutritional support, ICT interventions, Media Advocacy and Research, Community Outreach and Jan Andolan.
The current Anganwadi Services Scheme is one of the largest and unique programmes of the Govt. of India for early childhood care and development.
The beneficiaries under this scheme are children in the age group of 0-6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers and adolescent girls in the age group 14-18 years
Poshan 2.0 seeks to address the challenging situation of malnutrition among children up to the age of 6 years, adolescent girls (14-18 years) and pregnant and lactating women.
Poshan 2.0 is crucial for India’s development as women and children comprise over two-thirds of India’s population.
The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals lies at the fore-front of this programme design.
Poshan 2.0 shall contribute to the SDGs, specifically, SDG 2 on Zero Hunger and SDG 4 on Quality Education.
The Mission will focus on the fundamental importance of nutrition and early childhood care and education for the well-being, growth and development of children into healthy and productive adults.
To prepare a comprehensive strategy to address the challenge of malnutrition, the Supplementary Nutrition Programme under Anganwadi Services, Scheme for Adolescent Girls and Poshan Abhiyaan have been aligned under Poshan 2.0 as an Integrated Nutrition Support Programme. The objectives of Poshan 2.0 are as follows:
To contribute to human capital development of the country;
Address challenges of malnutrition;
Promote nutrition awareness and good eating habits for sustainable health and wellbeing; and
Address nutrition related deficiencies through key strategies.
Poshan 2.0 shall focus on Maternal Nutrition, Infant and Young Child Feeding Norms, Treatment Protocols for SAM/MAM and Wellness through AYUSH practices to reduce wasting and under-weight prevalence besides stunting and anemia, supported by the ‘Poshan Tracker’, a new, robust ICT centralised data system which is being linked with the RCH Portal (Anmol) of MoHFW.
Poshan 2.0 shall seek to optimize the quality and delivery of nutrition under the Supplementary Nutrition Program.
With a view to address various gaps and shortcomings in the on-going nutrition programme and to improve implementation as well as to accelerate improvement in nutrition and child development outcomes, the existing scheme components have been re-organized under Poshan 2.0 into the primary verticals given below:
Nutrition Support for POSHAN through Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP) for children of the age group of 06 months to 6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers (PWLM); and for Adolescent Girls in the age group of 14 to 18 years in Aspirational Districts and North Eastern Region (NER);
Early Childhood Care and Education [3-6 years]and early stimulation for (0-3 years);
Anganwadi Infrastructure including modern, upgraded Saksham Anganwadi; and
Poshan Abhiyaan
The Empowered Programme Committee (EPC) is the highest technical body for planning, supervising and monitoring the effective implementation of Anganwadi Services Scheme.
The Composition of the EPC is as under: Secretary, Ministry of WCD - Chairperson
The ‘Poshan Tracker’ application was rolled out by MoWCD on 1st March 2021 through National e-Governance Division (NeGD), MyGov as an important governance tool.
Technology under the Poshan Tracker is being leveraged for dynamic identification of stunting, wasting, under-weight prevalence among children and last mile tracking of nutrition service delivery.
Funding Pattern - States/UTs with Legislature - 60:40 , NE/Himalayan States (including J&K) - 90:10 , UT Without Legislature - 100:0 .
The month of September is celebrated as Rashtriya Poshan Maah across the country. Similarly, in/around March every year, Poshan Pakhwada is celebrated.
The Poshan Maah and Poshan Pakhwada celebrated so far have witnessed wide participation and enthusiasm from convergent Ministries, States/UTs and field functionaries.
Frontline workers, community groups, PRIs, staff at Block and District level, State departments and Ministries had exemplified diligent work towards triggering a Jan Andolan for POSHAN Abhiyaan.
For leveraging convergence for food and nutrition, POSHAN Vatikas (kitchen gardens and nutri-gardens) shall be set up at or near Anganwadi Centres, wherever possible and in Government led schools and Gram Panchayat lands where benefits can easily be provided to women and children.
Guidelines for management and distribution shall be devised at the State/UT level.
To initiate this program, the space in Anganwadi Centres, panchayat areas, vacant lands of village any other government premises such as school campus or any other patch of community/government land available in the locality, etc. can be utilized.
Adolescent girls and BPL women shall be engaged to manage the Vatikas.
Importance of collective ownership, collective responsibility and community co-operation can be inculcated through this unique scheme.
POSHAN Vatikas can meet the important dietary diversity gap that has been repeatedly revealed in different surveys by providing different green vegetables, fruits, nuts, herbs/medicinal herbs and vegetables round the year.
What is more important is that these can be easily retrofitted with backyard poultry and fishery units.
Women Led Gram Sabha Committee shall institutionalize “Poshan Panchayats” to nominate/elect 10-15 women members to institutionalize a “Poshan Panchayat” which acts as a sub-committee of the Gram Panchayat.
The “Poshan Panchayat Committee” will be led by women, who are also direct beneficiaries of the Anganwadi services and can act as “agents of change,” thus representing a model for direct democracy to improve awareness and accountability of nutrition services at the last mile.
Such women led Poshan Panchayats with mandatory representation of vulnerable communities can act as facilitators for “Peoples Audit” to improve bottom-up accountability of service delivery at Anganwadi Centres.
Poshan Panchayat and VHSNC shall meet once a month at least to discuss specific reasons for malnutrition specific to their jurisdiction and facilitate necessary community/social support mechanism.
Government is implementing several schemes and programs under the Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services Scheme as direct targeted interventions to address the problem of malnutrition in the country.
All these schemes address one or other aspects related to nutrition and have the potential to improve nutritional outcomes in the country.
Malnutrition is not a direct cause of death but contributes to mortality and morbidity by reducing resistance to infections.
There are a number of causes of death of children such as prematurity, low birth weight, pneumonia, diarrhoeal diseases, non-communicable diseases, birth asphyxia & birth trauma, injuries, congenital anomalies, acute bacterial sepsis and severe infections, etc.
POSHAN Abhiyaan (National Nutrition Mission) is a flagship programme of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), Government of India, which ensures convergence with various programmes i.e., Anganwadi Services, Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG) of MWCD Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), National Health Mission (NHM), Swachh-Bharat Mission, Public Distribution System (PDS), Department Food & Public Distribution, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation.
About the Mission - The goals of NNM are to achieve improvement in nutritional status of Children from 0-6 years, Adolescent Girls, Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers in a time bound manner during the next three years beginning 2017-18.
The National Nutrition Mission (NNM) has been set up with a three year budget of Rs.9046.17 crore commencing from 2017-18. The NNM is a comprehensive approach towards raising nutrition level in the country on a war footing.
It will comprise mapping of various Schemes contributing towards addressing malnutrition, including a very robust convergence mechanism, ICT based Real Time Monitoring system, incentivizing States/UTs for meeting the targets, incentivizing Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) for using IT based tools, eliminating registers used by AWWs, introducing measurement of height of children at the Anganwadi Centres (AWCs), Social Audits, setting-up Nutrition Resource Centres, involving masses through Jan Andolan for their participation on nutrition through various activities, among others.
Major impact - The programme through the targets will strive to reduce the level of stunting, under-nutrition, anemia and low birth weight babies.
NNM 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. Although the target to reduce Stunting is atleast 2% p.a., Mission would strive to achieve reduction in Stunting from 38.4% (NFHS-4) to 25% by 2022 (Mission 25 by 2022).
It will create synergy, ensure better monitoring, issue alerts for timely action, and encourage States/UT s to perform, guide and supervise the line Ministries and States/UT s to achieve the targeted goals.
Benefits & Coverage - More than 10 crore people will be benefitted by this programme. All the States and districts will be covered in a phased manner i.e. 315 districts in 2017-18, 235 districts in 2018-19 and remaining districts in 2019-20 .
The month of March is celebrated as Poshan Pakhwada across the country. So far, three Poshan Pakhwada have been celebrated, in which around 4.4 crore activities were successfully conducted.
The celebrations held so far witnessed wide participation and enthusiasm from convergent Ministries, States/UTs and field functionaries. Frontline workers, community groups, PRIs, staff at Block and District level, State departments and Ministries had exemplified diligent work towards triggering a Jan Andolan for POSHAN Abhiyaan.
For the celebration of 4th Poshan Pakhwada it has been decided to emphasize upon two broader areas viz. i). identification & celebration of Healthy Child, and ii). integration of modern and traditional practices for healthy India within the thematic areas around Poshan MITRA (Modern, ITbased, Traditional& Regional Activities)