New Delhi: In a major move aimed at addressing malnutrition among newborns and mothers, the Union Cabinet has approved setting up of National Nutrition Mission (NNM) with a three-year budget of Rs 9046.17 crore commencing from 2017-18.
According to Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Maneka Gandhi, the mandate of the mission is to tackle the problems of under-nutrition, low birth weight and stunting in the next three years.
The mission has also set a target to reduce under-nutrition and low birth weight by 2 percent each year and put a full stop on pilferage of funds by making Aadhaar registration compulsory for children availing food under the mission.
"It will strive to achieve reduction in stunting from 38.4 per cent as per the National Family Health Survey-4 to 25 per cent by 2022. It also aims to bring down anaemia among young children, women and adolescent girls by three per cent per year," the WCD Minister said, adding that more than 10 crore people will benefit from the programme.
"Like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, the NNM is a momentous step. Our government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modiji is striving hard to produce suposhit children," the WCD Minister said.
Hailing the cabinet decision, Union Health Minister JP Nadda said, "Under the nutrition mission both the ministries (WCD and Health) would work in convergence to address the under-nutrition and low birth weight issues through its different schemes under one common platform."
"ASHA, ANM and Anganwadi workers will work together as part of the intervention strategies under the mission to address malnutrition issues. There will be group performance-based incentives for them," Nadda said.
All the districts will be covered under the mission in a phased manner -- 315 districts in 2017-18, 235 districts in 2018-19 and remaining districts in 2019-20.
To check pilferage in distribution of supplementary nutrition at anganwadis under the Integrated Child Development Scheme, the government has decided to offer incentives to anganwadi workers for using IT-based tools such as smartphones.
Under the mission, various schemes contributing towards addressing malnutrition would be mapped and a very robust convergence mechanism would be introduced.
"It would also create synergy, ensure better monitoring, issue alerts for timely action, and encourage states/Union Territories to achieve the targeted goals," the official statement said.