More than half the funds for POSHAN

Abhiyaan are unutilised

Context-

 As per the recently published 4th progress report by the NITI Aayog, More than half
the funds for POSHAN Abhiyaan are unutilised.

Major findings-

 Utilization of funds- Less than half the funds allotted for the POSHAN
Abhiyaan have been utilized by India’s states.
 Mobile phones and monitoring devices- States and Union territories with poor
distribution of mobile phones and growth monitoring devices emerged as those with
low fund utilization.
 POSHAN Abhiyaan funds- Only 03 states had used over 50% of their POSHAN
Abhiyaan funds between 2017-2018 and 2018-2019.
o This improved marginally to 12 from 2017 to 2019 and FY 2019-2020.
 System readiness and capabilities Interventions which has enhanced compared to
the last progress report,
o Human resources.
o Supplies.
o Infrastructure.
o Training, and capacity building.
 Performance- On a scale of 0-100, only Punjab scored less than 50 among the large
states.
o Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Mizoram were the poor performers among
the small states while no UT scored less than 50.
 The report listed five prime elements of the POSHAN Abhiyaan scheme-
o Impact package- Provide a high impact package of interventions in the
first 1,000 days of a child’s life.
o Technology and management- Reinforce the delivery of these interventions
through technology and management.
o Frontline workers- Enhance the capacity of frontline workers.
o Malnutrition- Facilitate multi-sectoral convergence to address the multi-
dimensional nature of malnutrition.
o Community mobilization- Improve behaviour change and community
mobilization.
About Poshan Abhiyaan (Prime Minister’s Overarching
Scheme for Holistic Nutrition)-

 The programme aims to enhance nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant women
and lactating mothers.
 Poshan Abhiyaan was launched in 2018 with specific targets to be accomplished by
2022.
 Aim- To reduce Stunting and wasting by 02% a year (total 6% until 2022) among
children.
 Anemia by 03% a year (total 9%) among children, adolescent girls and pregnant
women and lactating mothers.
 Target- To decrease stunting among children in the age group 0-6 years from 38.4%
to 25% by 2022.

Salient Features of the POSHAN Abhiyan-

 The program was launched on International Women’s Day on 08 March 2018 at

Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan.
 The POSHAN (Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition)
Abhiyaan spreads awareness towards the problems related to malnutrition and brings
viable solutions with it.
 Implementation status reports of the Abhiyaan are submitted by NITI Aayog every 06
months. The implementation of POSHAN Abhiyaan is executed through the
Technical Support Unit set up at NITI Aayog, which will also carry out research,
policy, and technical support for the program.
 As the mission is expected to eradicate malnutrition by 2022, it has been taken up by
many ministries. This helps in expanding the outreach of the mission and thereby
facilitating its implementation.
 The execution of the mission is sufficed through technology and convergence among
several modules and departments.
 It seeks to attain a 25% reduction in stunting by 2020, as opposed to 38% currently.
 It also involves mapping many other schemes like Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY),
Scheme for Adolescent Girls, Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY),
Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (SBM), National Health Mission (NHM), and so on. The
program enables synergies among these schemes through an ICT-based real-time
monitoring system, robust convergence among the many related schemes,
incentivizing states and UTs for meeting the set goals, and improving Anganwadi
centers’ functioning, apart from conducting social audits.

POSHAN Maah-

 Rashtriya POSHAN Maah is observed in September. The activities in POSHAN

Maah were focused on Social and Behavioural Change and Communication. It helped
 to create awareness through assertive dialogue and thereby educated a large number
of people in the way of communication around this topic.
 The POSHAN Maah was broadly based around antenatal care, optimal breastfeeding,
anaemia, growth monitoring, girls’ - education, diet, hygiene and sanitation, eating
healthy, and so on.
 Around 120 million women, 60 million men, and 130 million children were reached
out to through the implementation of the POSHAN Maah. Altogether, POSHAN
Maah was successful in reaching over 30 Crore people in just 30 days.