• Abhijit Nath, NET Correspondent, Tripura 

Agartala, April 07, 2022 : The Central Government had released an amount of Rs 548.4 crore for POSHAN Abhiyan under the Ministry of Women and Child Development during the last five financial years for eight north eastern states of India.

In a press communique issued by the PIB, union Women and Child Development minister Smriti Zubin Irani in a written reply at Rajya Sabha on Wednesday informed that the central government had released a sum of Rs 548.4 crore for POSHAN Abhiyan for Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura from 2017-18 FY to 2021-22 FY.

Its worthy to note that POSHAN Abhiyan was launched on March 8, 2018. Under POSHAN Abhiyaan, all the districts of 36 States/UTs have been covered for roll-out. Till date, 11.03 lakh Smart Phones and 11.94 lakh Growth Monitoring Devices (GMDs) have been procured by the States/UTs. Around 12.63 lakh AWCs have started using the ICT Application. Approx. 40+ crore Jan Andolan based activities have been conducted since the launch of the Abhiyaan. Total three Poshan Pakhwadas and four Poshan Maahs have been conducted since the launch of the Abhiyaan. September, 2021 was celebrated as the Rashtriya Poshan Maah, wherein, 20.32 crore activities were conducted across the country, she added.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development released central funds of Rs 28.16 crore for Arunachal Pradesh, Rs 329.5 crore for Assam, Rs 43.9 crore for Manipur, Rs 50.73 crore for Meghalaya, Rs 34.86 crore for Mizoram, Rs 56.88 for Nagaland, Rs 13.71 crore for Sikkim and Rs 41.36 crore for Tripura from FY 2017-18 to FY 2021-22 under POSHAN Abhiyan; said union minister Irani.

She also informed “The estimated number of underweight, malnourished and severely malnourished children under 5 years of age is obtained under National Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. As per the recent report of NFHS-5 (2019-21), the nutrition indicators for children under 5 years have improved as compared with NFHS-4 (2015-16). Stunting has reduced from 38.4% to 35.5%, Wasting has reduced from 21.0% to 19.3% and Underweight prevalence has reduced from 35.8% to 32.1%.”