POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched on 8^th March 2018 with an aim to achieve improvement in nutritional status of Adolescent Girls, Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers in a time bound manner by adopting a synergised and result oriented approach. Recently, the efforts under the Supplementary Nutrition Programme of Anganwadi Services and POSHAN Abhiyaan have been aligned under ‘Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0’ (Mission Poshan 2.0), which is an integrated nutrition support programme. It seeks to address the challenges of malnutrition in children, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers through a strategic shift in nutrition content and delivery and by creation of a convergent ecosystem to develop and promote practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity. Poshan 2.0 focuses on Maternal Nutrition, Infant and Young Child Feeding Norms, Treatment of MAM/SAM and Wellness through AYUSH. Time-tested traditional wisdom in community nutritional practices is leveraged under Poshan 2.0 to focus on prevention of diseases and promotion of wellness through Yoga, cultivation of medicinal herbs in Poshan Vatikas, and use of AYUSH formulations to address conditions like anemia. Under Mission Poshan 2.0, fortified rice is being allocated for Supplementary Nutrition and focus is on millets and locally available nutritious food for ensuring adequate nutrition. Region-wise diet charts have been developed for pregnant women, viz., North, North-East, West, South, East and Central.

Further, Scheme for Adolescent Girls under Mission Poshan 2.0 has been revised to focus on Adolescent Girls in the age bracket 14-18 years of age in North East and Aspirational Districts to adopt a lifecycle approach to malnutrition.

Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMVVY) provides universal coverage to pregnant and lactating mothers for direct cash benefits of Rs. 5000 for one child with an aim to promote heath seeking behaviour and for partial compensation of wage losses during the period of pregnancy and motherhood. Under Mission Shakti, the Government has decided to extend the benefit for 2^nd child if it is girl child with a higher financial assistance of Rs. 6000.

As per information shared by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, under National Health Mission (NHM), following Schemes are implemented to provide maternal health services to all pregnant women including poor women throughout the country:

Surakshit Matritva Aashwasan (SUMAN) provides assured, dignified, respectful and quality healthcare at no cost and zero tolerance for denial of services for every woman and newborn visiting public health facilities to end all preventable maternal and newborn deaths.

Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), a demand promotion and conditional cash transfer scheme for promoting institutional delivery.

Under Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK), every pregnant woman is entitled to free delivery, including caesarean section, in public health institutions along with the provision of free transport, diagnostics, medicines, blood, other consumables & diet.

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.

LaQshya improves the quality of care in labour room and maternity operation theatres to ensure that pregnant women receive respectful and quality care during delivery and immediate post-partum.

Functionalization of First Referral Units (FRUs) by ensuring manpower, blood storage units, referral linkages to improve the access to quality of care for pregnant women

Setting up of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Wings at high caseload facilities to improve the quality of care provided to mothers and children.

Obstetric HDU & ICU in high caseload tertiary care facilities across the country to handle complicated pregnancy.

Monthly Village Health, Sanitation and Nutrition Day (VHSND), an outreach activity at Anganwadi centers for provision of maternal and child care including nutrition in convergence with the ICDS.

Birth Waiting Homes (BWH) are established in remote and tribal areas to promote institutional delivery and improve access to healthcare facilities.

Outreach camps are provisioned for improving the reach of healthcare services especially in tribal and hard to reach areas. This platform is used to increase the awareness for the Maternal & Child health services, community mobilization as well as to track high risk pregnancies.

Performance based incentives to ANMs (SBAs): ANMs trained in SBA are incentivized for attending home deliveries in pre-identified and notified villages in remote and inaccessible areas where it is difficult to bring a woman to the institution for delivery on account of geographical/climatic exigencies.

Reproductive and child health (RCH) portal is a name-based web-enabled tracking system for pregnant women and newborn so as to ensure seamless provision of regular and complete services to them including antenatal care, institutional delivery and post-natal care.

MCP Card and Safe Motherhood Booklet are distributed to the pregnant women for educating them on diet, rest, danger signs of pregnancy, benefit schemes and institutional deliveries.

As per information shared by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Scheme for Promotion of Menstrual Hygiene among adolescent girls in the age group of 10-19 years is implemented under the Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK) by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare since 2011.

The major objectives of the scheme are:

       To increase awareness among adolescent girls on Menstrual Hygiene.

       To increase access to and use of high-quality sanitary napkins by adolescent girls.

       To ensure safe disposal of sanitary napkins in an environmentally friendly manner.

 

Since 2015-16, the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme is supported by National Health Mission through State Programme Implementation Plan (PIP) route based on the proposals received from the States. Under the overall budget provided for IEC/BCC activities for Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK) Mid Media/ Mass Media and IPC activities are carried out by the States/ UTs targeted at adolescent girls, gatekeepers, influencers and community at large. Apart from the above, the Teachers, ANMs, ASHA worker and AWWs are oriented appropriately for the scheme with the budget provided for the same under RKSK. In FY 2022-23, approximately 45 lakh adolescent girls were provided sanitary napkin packs every month (HMIS data). The percentage of women age 15-24 years using a hygienic method of protection during their menstrual period has also increased from 58% in National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4) (2015-16) to 78% in NFHS-5 (2019-21). Similarly, the usage of Sanitary Napkins has also increased from 42% to 64%.

Further, under Jan Andolan undertaken by this Ministry for health and nutrition, large scale and continuous behaviour change communication have been carried out through annual Poshan Maah and Poshan Pakhwada. In Poshan Maah 2022, Mahila aur Swasthya was a key theme around which close to 10 crore activities were conducted on awareness and sensitisation around women’s health, anemia prevention, appropriate breast-feeding practices etc. Close to 7.18 lakh awareness camps on menstrual hygiene were organized across the country.

This information was given by the Union Minister for Women & Child Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

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