When the United Nations has declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets, the Odisha Millets Mission Programme underway in Sundargarh has obtained praise from country’s apex policy think tank, the Niti Aayog.
The Niti Aayog, in its recent report titled, ‘Take Home Ration – Good Practices across the States/UTs,’ has raised a toast to the initiative of including Ragi Laddu in Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP) for preschool children under ICDS in Sundargarh.
Hailing it as a unique model in the country for its three-pronged gains of boosting the production of Ragi and other millet varieties, providing an assured price to the farmers and giving additional income to women SHGs, the Niti Aayog has presented it among the best practices in the country under diversification of Take Home Ration (THR) products.
In his reaction to Niti Aayog’s report, district Collector Sundargarh, Dr Parag Harshad Gavali said, “By supplementing nutrition through millets, we are building a strong foundation for the growth of children. This innovation has also helped in boosting income of farmers and women Self Help Groups (SHGs) in the district.”
Ragi Laddu to supplement nutrition of pre-school children was launched as a pilot programme in Sundargarh district on August 15, 2020. In a span of 12 months, this had become a universalized scheme covering all 21 ICDS project locations in 17 blocks and four ULBS.
The special initiative has been benefiting over 63,000 children in the age group of 3-6 years in the district. At the same time, a total of 39 SHGs have been involved in the project of preparing the Ragi Laddu mix.
Moreover, against the initial provisioning of two laddus per children per week, the district has enhanced it to four laddus per child per week.
For meeting the twin objectives of ending malnutrition and generating livelihood, the Niti Aayog has termed the scheme a unique good practice in the country.
As of date, 21 Millet Shakti kiosks are functioning in the district, while one Millet Shakti Café is operational at Rourkela. Besides, two millet on-wheels vans are at work in popularizing millets based cookies, bakes and snack varieties.
The NITI Aayog in its THR Best Practices Story from Odisha has also mentioned about similar initiative run by Keonjhar district.
The Odisha Millets Mission Programme in the district is galloping at a good pace. With District Mineral Foundation’s (DMF) support, a five year plan was chalked out that aimed at bringing over 3,000 hectares of farmland under millets cultivation in the district. But the area under millet coverage is all set to double to over 6,000 hectares at the end of the five year plan (FY 2022-23).