Rashtriya Poshan Maah

The Rashtriya Poshan Maah is being celebrated during the month of September every year under POSHAN Abhiyaan (PM’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment), which was launched in 2018.

Background

POSHAN Abhiyaan is Government of India’s flagship programme to improve nutritional outcomes for children under 6 years of age, pregnant women and lactating mothers. Launched by Hon’ble Prime Minister, POSHAN (Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition) Abhiyaan aims to address the challenge of malnutrition in a mission-mode. Focusing on the aims of POSHAN Abhiyaan, Mission Poshan 2.0 (Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0) has been launched as an integrated nutrition support program to strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach and outcomes with focus on developing practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity to disease and malnutrition.

National Nutrition Mission named as the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s overarching scheme for Holistic Nutrition –POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched as a multi-ministerial convergence mission, with the overarching vision to make India malnutrition free by 2022. In order to ensure community mobilization and bolster people’s participation, every year, the month of September is celebrated as POSHAN Maah across the country. Poshan Abhiyaan overall intends to increase nutritional awareness and responsiveness among mothers of young children, adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women, family members including husbands, father, mothers-in-law and community members, health care providers (ANM, ASHA, Anganwadi worker) about vital nutrition behaviours.

Objective

The objective of the Poshan Maah is to ensure community mobilisation and bolster people’s participation for addressing malnutrition amongst young children, and women and to ensure health and nutrition for everyone.

Stakeholders

Ministry of Women and Child Development, being the nodal Ministry for POSHAN Abhiyan, is celebrating the Poshan Maah in convergence with partner Ministries and departments, at  National, States/UTs, Districts, and grass root level.

POSHAN Maah 2022

This year, the objective is to trigger Poshan Maah through Gram Panchayats as Poshan Panchayats with key focus on “Mahila aur Swasthya” and “Bacha aur Shiksha”.

The month long event will witness intensive activities across the country for awareness about nutrition at the ground level through sensitization drives, outreach programmes, identification drives, camps and fairs with special focus on pregnant and lactating women, children below six years and adolescent girls, in order to realise the vision of ‘Swasth Bharat’.

At the Panchayat level, awareness activities will be conducted by local functionaries under the guidance of the concerned District Panchayati Raj Officers and CDPOs.   Poshan Panchayat Committees will work closely with field level workers (FLWs) – AWWs, ASHAs, ANMs – to support problem solving and enabling service delivery through Anganwadi Centres (AWCs), Village Health and Nutrition Day (VHNDs), and other relevant platforms to ensure all pregnant and lactating women, children below six years, and adolescent girls receive basic Integrated Child Development services. 

Awareness drives on Anganwadi Services and good health practices will also be organised. Growth Measurement drives will be conducted to bring more beneficiaries under the ambit of Anganwadi Services. Growth Measurement drives under Swasth Balak Spardha will be conducted by States with the help of AWWs, AWHs, ASHA, district functionaries and agencies such as Lions Club, Rotary Club etc. Health camps for anemia check-ups will be especially organised at AWCs for adolescent girls.

Further, land will also be identified for Nutri-Gardens or Poshan Vatikas at or near Anganwadi Centres (AWCs). 

Special focus will be given on the importance of rainwater conservation among women at Anganwadi centers and on traditional foods in tribal areas for healthy mother and child.

Under the State – level activities, ‘Amma ki Rasoi’ or Grandmother’s Kitchen of traditional nutritious recipes will be organised. Extensive efforts will be made to link traditional foods with local festivals during the month. 

A national level toy-creation workshop will also be organized to promote use of indigenous and local toys for learning in Anganwadi Centres.

In States/UTs, women and child development depts. through Anganwadi workers and helpers and health and family welfare departments through ASHA, ANM, primary health centers, community health centers, school education and literacy department through schools, Panchayati Raj departments through panchayats and rural development through self-help groups etc. will carry out various thematic activities and spread the message of the importance of holistic nutrition throughout the month to ensure a healthier future for women and children.

Rashtriya Poshan Maah serves as a platform to bring focus to the discourse of nutrition and good health. In the 5th Rashtriya Poshan Maah the aim is to convert Jan Andolan into Jan Bhagidari to fulfill the Hon’ble PM’s vision of a Suposhit Bharat.

POSHAN Tracker

The Ministry of Women and Child Development has rolled out Poshan Tracker application. The goal is to follow nutrition systems strengthening approach for improving maternal and child undernutrition, focused on strengthening implementation bottlenecks at all levels. The Poshan Tracker is built using centralized data architecture, that also aligns with the digital technology systems of other ministries and programs. The system provides a digital identity to each beneficiary through a digital card, and allows convergence of call centre with the technology platform. The system generates automated alerts to the critical last-mile beneficiaries. It also ensures efficient audit of the delivery system, by documenting real time attendance of beneficiaries and duty bearers. Such a robust digital technology platform and management information system, will help the mission to scale efficiently, thereby generating and documenting significant positive impact.

The purpose of POSHAN Tracker application is to provide a 360-degree view of the activities of the Anganwadi Centre (AWC), service deliveries of Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) and complete beneficiary management for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children. The proposed system should enable real-time monitoring and tracking of all AWCs, AWWs and beneficiaries on the defined indicators. 

Poshan Tracker App is meant for Aanganwadi workers, Anganwadi centers to enter beneficiaries data in the forms. It is not at all developed for general public.

Poshan Tracker App is available over Google playstore. To download, click here .

Knowledge resources

• Assessment of growth in children
• Identify Stunting and Wasting, Learn to Prevent Malnutrition in Children
• Preparation during pregnancy for newborn care and family planning
• Preventing illnesses to avert malnutrition and death
• Preventing anemia in women
• Identifying and Preventing Severe Acute Malnutrition
• Kangaroo Mother Care
• Birth Preparedness for Institutional and Home Delivery
• Ensuring that complementary feeding improves over time
• Observing Breastfeeding In Newborn Babies Why and How

Source : POSHAN Tracker