Cabinet approves setting up of National Nutrition Mission

Cabinet approves setting up of National Nutrition Mission

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi yesterday has approved setting up of National Nutrition Mission (NNM) with a three year budget of Rs.9046.17 crore commencing from 2017-18.

Features:

The NNM, as an apex body, will monitor, supervise, fix targets and guide the nutrition related interventions across the Ministries.
The proposal consists of
· mapping of various Schemes contributing towards addressing malnutrition
· introducing a very robust convergence mechanism
· ICT based Real Time Monitoring system
· incentivizing States/UTs for meeting the targets
· incentivizing Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) for using IT based tools
· eliminating registers used by AWWs
· introducing measurement of height of children at the Anganwadi Centres (AWCs)
· Social Audits
· setting-up Nutrition Resource Centres, involving masses through Jan Andolan for their participation on nutrition through various activities, among others.

Major impact:

The programme through the targets will strive to reduce the level of stunting, under-nutrition, anemia and low birth weight babies. It will create synergy, ensure better monitoring, issue alerts for timely action, and encourage States/UTs to perform, guide and supervise the line Ministries and States/UTs to achieve the targeted goals.

Benefits & Coverage:

More than 10 crore people will be benefitted by this programme. All the States and districts will be covered in a phased manner i.e. 315 districts in 2017-18, 235 districts in 2018-19 and remaining districts in 2019-20.

Financial Outlay:

An amount of Rs. 9046.17 crore will be expended for three years commencing from 2017-18. This will be funded by Government Budgetary Support (50%) and 50% by IBRD or other MDB. Government budgetary support would be 60:40 between Centre and States/UTs, 90:10 for NER and Himalayan States and 100% for UTs without legislature. Total Government of India share over a period of three years would be Rs. 2849.54 crore.

Implementation strategy and targets:

Implementation strategy would be based on intense monitoring and Convergence Action Plan right upto the grass root level. NNM will be rolled out in three phases from 2017-18 to 2019-20. NNM targets to reduce stunting, under-nutrition, anemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls) and reduce low birth weight by 2%, 2%, 3% and 2% per annum respectively. Although the target to reduce Stunting is atleast 2% p.a., Mission would strive to achieve reduction in Stunting from 38.4% (NFHS-4) to 25% by 2022 (Mission 25 by 2022).

Background:

There are a number of schemes directly/indirectly affecting the nutritional status of children (0-6 years age) and pregnant women and lactating mothers. Inspite of these, level of malnutrition and related problems in the country is high. There is no dearth of schemes but lack of creating synergy and linking the schemes with each other to achieve common goal. NNM through robust convergence mechanism and other components would strive to create the synergy.

..........................................Cabinet approves Rs9,046 crore National Nutrition Mission

Under the mission, the government is targeting a reduction of 2% a year in stunting, undernutrition and low birthweight among 100 million people
The cabinet has approved the setting up of a National Nutrition Mission (NNM) with a three-year budget of Rs9,046.17 crore, to rein in malnourishment and stunted growth.

Under the mission, the government is targeting a reduction of 2% a year in stunting, undernutrition and low birthweight among 100 million people. It aims to reduce anaemia among young children, women and adolescent girls by 3% a year. The programme would be undertaken in a phased manner, covering 315 districts in 2017-18, 235 districts in 2018-19 and the remaining districts in 2019-20.

Minister for women and child development Maneka Gandhi said NNM will address three aspects—the food that should be given to rein in stunting, undernourishment, low birthweight and anaemia; the delivery system required for it; and monitoring of the entire process.

“PM feels to tackle these questions and undernutrition problem in the country, various ministries need to work in convergence and not silos and NNM will be a platform (to do so),” she said.

Health and family welfare minister J.P. Nadda said macro-nutrition was being monitored by the women and child development ministry while his ministry was concentrating on micro-nutrition and infections. NNM will ensure convergence, and lead to better results.

The government, in a statement, said the implementation strategy for NNM would be based on intense monitoring and a convergence action plan up to the grass-roots level.

The women and child development ministry’s secretary Rakesh Srivastava said NNM would be implemented using information technology as the basic tool; workers at anganwadis (women and child development centres) would be given smartphones and their supervisors smart tablets to monitor daily activities and compile reports. The move will be a deviation from the old practice of maintaining registers and will also help to reduce pilferage.

Under NNM, the ministries of women and child development, health and family welfare, and water and sanitation will work together. The mission will form an apex body that would fix targets and monitor, supervise and guide nutrition-related interventions across the ministries.

The mission would include several components like an ICT (information and communications technology)-based real-time monitoring system, incentivizing of states and Union territories to meet their targets, social audits, and setting up of nutrition resource centres.

“It is very important to invest in nutrition in India because balanced diet and healthy nutrition plays a pivotal role in overall development of women and children,” said Shikha Khanna, senior dietician and head of the department (nutrition and dietetics) at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. “Healthy women deliver healthy children and nurture a good society, and healthy and nourished children are the country’s future. We have a long way to go in terms of nutrition of women and children.”