The Government has undertaken several initiatives to promote the care, nutrition and welfare of pregnant women, with a focus on improving maternal health outcomes and ensuring the timely delivery of benefits to eligible beneficiaries. Under the National Health Mission (NHM), the Government of India implements various schemes and initiatives to provide healthcare, nutritional support and welfare services to pregnant women across the country. The key schemes and initiatives are as follows:

• Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK) entitles all pregnant women deliver in public health institutions to have absolutely free and no expense delivery, including caesarean section. The entitlements include free drugs, consumables, free diet during stay, free diagnostics, free transportation and free blood transfusion, if required. Similar entitlements are also in place for sick infants up to one year of age.

• Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA) provides pregnant women a fixed day, free of cost, assured and quality antenatal check-up by a Specialist/Medical Officer on the 9^th day of every month.
• Extended PMSMA strategy ensures quality antenatal care (ANC) to pregnant women, especially to high-risk pregnant (HRP) women and individual HRP tracking until a safe delivery is achieved by means of financial incentivization for the identified high-risk pregnant women and accompanying ASHA for an extra 3 visits over and above the PMSMA visit.
• Surakshit Matritva Aashwasan (SUMAN) provides assured, dignified, respectful and quality healthcare at no cost and zero tolerance for denial of services for every pregnant woman and newborn visiting public health facilities to end all preventable maternal and newborn deaths.
• Optimizing Postnatal Care aims to strengthen the quality of post-natal care by laying emphasis on detection of danger signs in mothers and incentivization of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) for prompt detection, referral & treatment of such high-risk postpartum mothers.
• Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) is a Centrally Sponsored Maternity Benefit Scheme under which cash incentives of ₹5,000/- are provided directly to the Bank/ Post Office account of the beneficiary in Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode for the first child. The eligible beneficiaries receive the remaining cash incentive, as per approved norms, towards maternity benefit under Janani Suraksha Yojana after institutional delivery, so that on average a woman gets ₹6,000/-. Cash incentive of ₹6,000/- is also provided under PMMVY to eligible beneficiaries for the second child, subject to the second child being a girl.
• Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 to address the challenges of malnutrition; the Government has subsumed Anganwadi Services, Poshan Abhiyaan and the Scheme for Adolescent Girls (14–18 years in Aspirational Districts and the North-Eastern Region) under the umbrella Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 (Mission Poshan 2.0).

Under the Mission, Supplementary Nutrition is provided to Pregnant Women, Lactating Mothers, Children (6 months to 6 years) and Adolescent Girls in accordance with the nutrition norms prescribed under Schedule II of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013. The nutrition norms were revised in January 2023 to provide a more comprehensive and balanced supplementary nutrition package based on the principles of diet diversity, quality protein, healthy fats and essential micronutrients, including Calcium, Zinc, Iron, Dietary Folate, Vitamin A, Vitamin B6 and Vitamin B12. Additional supplementary nutrition is also provided to Severely Acutely Malnourished (SAM) children as per the provisions of the NFSA.

• SUMAN Roadmap 2030: The SUMAN Roadmap 2030 adopts a life-cycle approach by integrating interventions across the continuum of care, covering pre-pregnancy care, antenatal care, intrapartum care and post-natal care.
• Anaemia Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan: The Government of India has recently released the Anaemia Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan –Operational guidelines during the 16^th Central Council of Health and Family Welfare (CCHFW) meeting on 29^th June 2026 to address the high prevalence of anemia through a 7x7x7 strategy, moving ahead from the older 6x6x6 strategy of Anaemia Mukt Bharat programme. The seven beneficiary groups are low birth weight babies (0-6 months), children (6-59 months), children (5-9 years), adolescents (10-19 years), pregnant and lactating women and women of reproductive age group (20-49 years) in a life cycle approach.

In addition to the above, under National Health Mission (NHM), the Government ensures transparency, proper implementation and timely delivery of benefits to eligible pregnant women across the country by a robust, multi-layered framework that includes review of State-wise key deliverables against approved targets during NPCC Meetings with all States/UTs, regular assessment of performance through the Output-Outcome Monitoring Framework (OOMF). In addition, annual common review Missions (CRMs) provide independent, on-ground assessments of programme implementations, health system strengthening, and progress on key indicators.

Along with these programme implementation and monitoring mechanisms, the Government has also taken measures to enhance awareness, strengthen community outreach and leverage technology to ensure effective delivery of maternal health and nutrition services. Various schemes are popularized through regular Information, Education & Communication (IEC) & Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) strategies, including mass media. Field-level workers like ANMs, ASHAs and CHOs are promoting programmes at the ground level through interpersonal communication.

Under POSHAN Abhiyan, the following measures are undertaken:

• Implementation of the Poshan Tracker as a digital governance tool for real-time monitoring and tracking of beneficiaries and Anganwadi services.
• Introduction of the Nominee Module in the Poshan Tracker to ensure uninterrupted distribution of Take-Home Ration (THR) to Pregnant Women, Lactating Mothers and Adolescent Girls when the registered beneficiary is unable to collect the ration personally.
• Provision of smartphones to all Anganwadi Workers and other field functionaries along with annual data recharge support for effective use of the Poshan Tracker application.

The Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Smt. Anupriya Patel, stated this in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

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