Poshan abhiyaan icds

Amrita Kumari, a pregnant mother from Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, recalls how a frontline worker under India’s nationwide nutrition program - the “When I was pregnant,” she said, “the anganwadi didi periodically visited my house to advise me about the importance of ante-natal checkups, regularly taking iron and folic acid tablets and consuming a variety of foods. She also delivered rice, pulses and soyabean to supplement my nutrition. And, since I was pregnant, she alerted the local health team in case I needed support.” For this, Amrita remains ever grateful. Amrita’s story is one of the innumerable examples of how the POSHAN Abhiyaan reached out to pregnant women, lactating mothers and those with young children, even during the most difficult times. The program, launched by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2018, seeks to ramp up the impact of India’s long-standing Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme by placing special focus on pregnant women and children below two years of age. In March and April 2021, the Bank conducted a survey to assess the program’s delivery of nutrition services, whether the nutritional knowledge of beneficiaries had improved and if they had adopted more appropriate nutrition and feeding practices - the key desired outcomes. The findings demonstrated that the services delivered through the POSHAN Abhiyaan – the receipt of relevant messages, home visits by the anganwadi worker, and attendance at community based events...

India’s National Nutrition Mission was renamed POSHAN Abhiyaan (Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition) and was launched by the Government of India on 8th March 2018. As a flagship programme, POSHAN Abhiyaan aims to improve nutrition amongst children, pregnant women, and lactating mothers with specific targets on reducing stunting, anemia, under-nutrition and low birth weight. POSHAN Abhiyaan focuses on converting the agenda of improving nutrition through a Jan Andolan involving the Panchayati Raj Institutions/Village Organizations/SHGs etc. and ensuring wide public participation. The seven pillars of POSHAN Abhiyaan are the ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme)-CAS (Common Application Software) usage to meet the objectives of the ICDS scheme, Capacity building exercises, Convergence between health and nutrition schemes, Innovations, Incentivising States and union territories, Behaviour change, IEC and Advocacy and Grievance redressal. POSHAN Abhiyaan aims to reduce stunting, undernutrition and low birth weight by 2% annually and anemia by 3% annually. Activities under POSHAN Abhiyaan These are activities planned to mobilize the nutrition officers, field staff and community through various activities throughout the year. Some of these include: • POSHAN Maah: The Month of September is celebrated as POSHAN Maah across the country to ensure community mobilization and bolster people’s participation in improving the nutritional status of the community. ...