POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched on 8th March 2018 with an aim to achieve improvement in nutritional status of Children under 6 years, Adolescent Girls, Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers in a time bound manner by adopting a synergised and result oriented approach. POSHAN Abhiyaan addresses malnutrition issues across the nation through components like ICT Application, Convergence, Community obilization, Behavioural Change & Jan Andolan, Capacity Building, Incentives and Awards, and Innovations.

Mission Poshan 2.0, an integrated nutrition support programme which subsumes Supplementary Nutrition Programme and POSHAN Abhiyaan, has been announced in budget 2021-2022 for all States/UTs to strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach and outcomes with focus on developing practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity to disease and malnutrition. Steps have also been taken to improve nutritional quality and testing, strengthen delivery and leverage technology under Poshan Tracker a robust ICT enabled platform, to improve governance with regard to real time monitoring and provisioning of supplementary nutrition for prompt supervisions and management of services. The Abhiyaan empowers Anganwadi workers and Lady Supervisors by providing them with smart phones, and as of now the no. of smart phones and Growth Monitoring Devices (comprises of Stadiometer, Infantometer, Weighing Scale for Infant and Mother & Child) procured by States/UTs are 11.03 lakh and 11.94 lakh respectively.

Guidelines were issued for transparency and accountability in delivery of supplementary nutrition and to track nutritional outcomes on 13.01.2021. The details of funds distributed to State Governments since 2017-2018, State-wise and year-wise is at Annexure I.

As on 30^th June 2021, a total of 9,12,32,915 beneficiaries are availing benefits under POSHAN Abhiyaan as per the ICDS RRS report. The category wise detail of beneficiaries is at Annexure II.

This information was given by the Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

*****

AS

Annexure I

The State/UT wise details of central funds released and utilised by States/UTs under POSHAN Abhiyaan from FY 2017-18 to FY 2020-21

(in Rs Lakh)

Annexure II

******