Nothing more important than making country free of malnutrition: NITI Aayog VC
New Delhi: Highlighting the role of Poshan Abhiyaan scheme, Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog on Wednesday said that it is very important to eradicate malnutrition from the country.
“Nothing more important than making the country free of malnutrition. It is unacceptable for a country known for its knowledge economy to have 38 per cent of its children under-nourished and hence it was of utmost priority to eradicate malnutrition,” Kumar said.
The National Nutrition Mission titled Poshan Abhiyaan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year, targets to reduce stunting, under-nutrition, anaemia and low birth weight among children, and also focuses on adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
“Poshan Maah would not have been possible without the relentless efforts of frontline workers across ministries. We are proud to have them as the foundation of this system. We have a long road ahead and the success of Poshan Maah has invigorated our resolve to achieve our goals,” Kumar added.
Apart from the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) which is the nodal agency, NITI Aayog is also in the Council. The month of September was celebrated by the Council across the country as ‘Poshan Maah’.
Giving the details of the outcome of the ‘Poshan Maah’, Secretary, Rakesh Srivastava said that the celebration saw 25.4 crore total participation with 22.58 lakh activities conducted all across the country.
Madhya Pradesh topped the list of states with 7.7 Lakh activities followed by Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
He said that of the out of 22.58 lakh activities, 32 per cent was conducted jointly by field functionaries, around 21 per cent activities were convergence of inter ministry activities.