Poshan Abhiyaan Will Address Problem of Stunting and Wasting: WCD Secretary
Rakesh Srivastava, Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development speaks to Outlook on Poshan Abhiyaan and how can it help address the problem of malnutrition in the country.
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00:00 Actually, for a country of India's size, the NFHS, the National Family Health Survey,
00:16 four, the data of which is available with us, shows a very alarmingly high level of
00:21 stunting and wasting in this country.
00:24 As far as stunting is concerned, almost 38.4 percent of the children in this country, they
00:29 are stunted and a very large proportion are stunted and more than 52 percent of our women
00:35 folk in this country, they suffer from anemia.
00:38 So with this type of scenario, it can be easily assumed that all the ambitious programs of
00:45 the government of India such as Digital India, Make in India and skill development programs
00:52 and all, all will be possible only when this problem of stunting, wasting and malnutrition
01:00 is done away with.
01:01 Otherwise, we will not be able to reap the demographic dividend in this country.
01:07 And therefore, for a country of India's size and complexity, stunting, wasting, anemia,
01:13 control, these are something which are very, very important for this country as a whole.
01:19 Yes, actually the Honorable Prime Minister launched the Poshan Abhiyan on the 8th of
01:33 March 2018 from Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan.
01:37 There is a radically new approach to this Poshan Abhiyan.
01:40 Firstly, we are using state of the art technology.
01:45 When I say state of the art technology, what I mean is that the forefront, frontier of
01:49 technology throughout the world.
01:51 Secondly, we are going in for convergent action and we, thirdly, we are going in for down
01:59 right up to the district level and even at the sub-district level, we are having committees
02:03 to review how the Poshan Abhiyan is faring.
02:07 And therefore, with this new approach, we are confident that the Poshan Abhiyan will
02:11 definitely address very, very comprehensively the problem of stunting and wasting in the
02:16 Indian scenario.
02:22 Actually, if we go by the previous business as usual model, then we were decreasing wasting
02:34 and stunting at the rate of 1% per annum and anemia at the rate of also less than 1% per
02:40 annum.
02:41 That was the business as usual model.
02:44 After the Poshan Abhiyan has been set into motion, we have tightened a belt and we have
02:47 given ourselves very, very stiff targets.
02:50 In that, we are targeting to decrease stunting and wasting by almost 2 to 3% per annum, anemia
02:58 by 3% per annum.
03:00 It is twice to three times higher than what was the previous, the achievement that we
03:05 had made.
03:06 And these are following the best practices in the world where for example, Peru and Brazil
03:12 who have had similar types of experience in tackling with malnutrition and stunting and
03:17 wasting, we have followed the same targets and we hope to achieve them.
03:28 Inter-departmental coordination is one of the biggest challenges of this program.
03:32 Previously it was thought that nutrition and the problems associated with nutrition is
03:38 the job only of the Ministry of Women and Child Development and of the Ministry of Health
03:42 and Family Welfare.
03:44 It has been now realized that it is not just these two ministries that are in the fray,
03:49 it is needs a multi-pronged effort.
03:52 So we need to rope in the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, we need to rope in the
03:57 Ministry of Rural Development, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, the Ministry of Tribal
04:01 Affairs, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, the Ministry of HRD
04:06 so far as the school going children are concerned.
04:09 So very large number of ministries are now directly involved in the Poshan Abhiyan and
04:15 in the month of September 2018 we carried out a Poshan Ma, the whole month and we had
04:21 good convergence with as many as 12 ministries and we had very good response to it.
04:27 We had more than 52 crore beneficiaries who were reached out by various ministries and
04:33 the number of activities also increased to more than 80 lakhs.
04:36 So it shows that once convergence is brought about and this ministry is bringing about
04:42 the desired level of convergence, nothing is impossible.
04:51 Jan Andolan means it has to go to the people, it does not have to remain confined only to
04:57 within the four walls of the ministry.
04:59 It should not be just departmentally run, there has to be an outreach to the people.
05:05 People have to be drawn towards this program and we are doing this through basically two
05:10 or three programs, one is the community based events and the second is the village health
05:14 sanitation and nutrition days.
05:17 You will be happy to know that most of the states they have earmarked one day in a month
05:23 where the VHSND is being organized, where all these 12, 13 departments they come together,
05:29 their personnel at the village level they come together, they discuss about Poshan,
05:34 they discuss about other issues and we try to arrive at set of standard operating procedures
05:42 on how to deal with it.
05:43 In addition, we have also written to the ministry of Panchayati Raj and we have got the Poshan
05:48 Abhiyan agenda included in the Gram Panchayat development plans that are currently being
05:53 formulated by the ministry of Panchayati Raj.
05:56 So we are trying at all levels to ensure that in the fold of Poshan Abhiyan all these 12,
06:03 13 ministries come into the picture and the most recent entry of two ministries, one is
06:09 the donor.
06:10 Donor has also come into the fray and also the consumer affairs and public distribution.
06:15 So 12, 13 ministries are now directly involved in tackling this malnutrition, stunting, wasting
06:21 and anemia in this country.
06:27 It is very much so and we have been taking up this matter with the ministry of agriculture.
06:33 We have also requested the ministry of agriculture to help us in bio-fortification because fortification
06:41 of rice, fortification of wheat, edible oils and salt is already being done, but this is
06:48 being done artificially.
06:50 What we need is bio-fortification of crops so that the crops naturally have all the bio-fortification
06:58 methodologies and ingredients available in it.
07:00 We are in touch with the ministry of agriculture and we hope that with the closer cooperation
07:05 with ministry of agriculture we will be able to have all this.
07:09 [Music]
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