Poshan Abhiyaan to Bring Down Stunting Among Children
India’s Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) conducted first national workshop on Poshan Abhiyaan (nutrition campaign) involving all the States and Union Territories (UTs) at Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra, New Delhi today.
The ministry organised the day long workshop with participation from all the states / UTs to provide a complete orientation on the Poshan Abhiyaan to explain the key components of the campaign, to provide handholding in using the software involved, and to augment the convergence with the different ministries involved in implementing the campaign for improved nutritional outcomes.
Launching the five e-ILA (e-Incremental Learning Approach) courses and two ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education) software modules, Rakesh Srivastava, Secretary, WCD said that the government has approved a 3-year budget of ₹ 9046.15 crore, commencing from 2017-18, for Poshan Abhiyaan.
e-ILA is an online system where programme functionaries will become more effective by learning to plan and execute each task correctly and consistently through methodical and ongoing capacity building.
The purpose of the ECCE module is to guide trainers to train Anganwadi Workers so that they are able to plan and conduct appropriate ECE activities.
Principal Secretaries / Secretaries / their representatives from various States / UTs attended the workshop which was held in six different sessions and had speakers from Convergent Ministries and institutions like NITI Aayog, UNICEF, and NGOs.
Poshan Abhiyaan was launched on 8th March 2018 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Jhunjhunu. The Abhiyaan 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 target of the mission is to bring down stunting among children in the age group 0-6 years from 38.4% to 25% by 2022.
