Shimla : Setting out an ambitious target to effectively deal with multiple health issues of rural women and children, Himachal Pradesh is all set to attain status of being country's first state to become mal-nutrition free under a newly started flagship scheme -- Mukhya Mantri Bal Suposhan Yojana (MMBSY)
The schemes,with a budgetary provision of Rs 65 cr aims at health security to every citizen of the state from newborn child to elderly. Mukhya Mantri Bal Suposhan Yojana (MMBSY) is one such scheme.
"The objective of the MMBSY scheme emphasises on a thousand day window of child birth, pre and post delivery support to the mother and child to reduce malnutrition. This will ensure proper health care of children and avoid the problem of malnutrition" said a senior official in the Chief Minister 's Office .
The Chief Minister had already announced to prepare an action plan in view of the nutritional status of the children and mother in the National Family Health Survey-5, prepared by the state government in collaboration with NITI Aayog.
The scheme aims to benefit more than four lakh children in the age group of 6 months to 6 years, more than five lakh children in the age group of 6 years to 10 years, more than three lakh adolescent girls and 94 thousand lactating mothers.
Special attention will be paid to malnourished children, lactating mothers and pregnant women, besides providing extra protein-rich food to children below 6 years of age, the draft proposal reads
Options have also been provided for the purchase of food items through self-help groups to empower women financially. Special campaigns like diarrhea control, pneumonia control, Anemia Mukt Himachal will be run in the state to solve the problem of malnutrition and childhood illnesses.
This scheme will benefit 14 thousand high risk low birth weight newborns, 13335 high risk pregnancies, 912 severely acute malnourished children and 5169 moderately malnourished children. Services of ASHA workers and Anganwadi workers will be taken in the implementation of the scheme. Bal Swasthya Clinics will be organized last Saturday of every month for low birth weight babies. There would be addition of vitamin-D and iron drops for low birth weight children.
Senior health officials said the lactating mothers were being encouraged for exclusive breastfeeding and starting complementary feeding, for which special incentives were also to be provided to them. In case of malnourished babies with low birth weight, an incentive amount was provided to the guardian for every kilogram of weight increase in case of severely acute malnourished children.
Appropriate provision has also been made for providing breastfeeding and nutritional counseling to pregnant women and lactating mothers. For this, to make the ECD 104 Call Center more effective, to provide proper information to pregnant women and lactating mothers, the number of Nutrition Consultants in this call center has been increased so that expert advice on health care is provided to pregnant women.
The MMBSY scheme aims to cover not only children, pregnant and lactating women, but also reaches to husband and family members by involving them for incentive for families of anemic pregnant women.