The Union Government has pointed out that Odisha has not utilized Central funds released under POSHAN Abhiyan.
Official figures indicate that the release amount of the Central share for Odisha in 2017-18 and 2018-19 was Rs 51.72 crore, but the utilisation has been nil.
Latest performance analysis revealed that Odisha is 35th among the 37 States and Union Territories so far as POSHAN Abhiyan implementation is concerned.
While malnutrition has been a cause of concern for the State with Odisha Government spending over Rs 70 crore under its own Nutrition Action Plan, non-acceptance of the Union Government flagship programme has raised many eyebrows.
The flagship programme of the Ministry of Women and Child Development(MoWCD) aims at reducing the level of stunting, under-nutrition, anaemia and infant birth weight, said Secretary MoWCD Rabindra Panwar
Panwar has said that POSHAN Abhiyan was launched to achieve improvement in nutritional indicators of children, adolescent girls and women in a time bound manner.
Though the target to reduce stunting is at least two per cent per annum, it strives to achieve reduction in stunting from 38.4 per cent (as per National Family Health Survey-4) to 25 per cent by 2022.
Though the rate of stunting and wasting among children in Odisha has shown a marginal decline, as per the NFHS-4, at least 34.1 per cent children under the age of five are stunted in the State. In rural pockets, the stunting rate is higher at 35.3 per cent while it is 27.2 per cent in urban Odisha.
Similarly, the wasting rate has gone up from 19.6 per cent to 20.4 per cent. It is 20.9 per cent in rural areas and 17 per cent in urban pockets.
Once implemented, the POSHAN Abhiyaan will ensure convergence with various programmes like Anganwadi Services, scheme for adolescent girls, Janani Suraksha Yojana, National Health Mission, Swachh Bharat Mission, Public Distribution System and MGNREGS.
The MoWCD has detailed out several Special Focus Areas for implementation and Odisha is lagging in almost all cases. As the State Government has not presented Action Plan for 2019-20 Financial Year, Union Government has not released funds to Odisha in this regard. So the Union Government has requested the State Government to prepare and submit Convergence Action Plan for 2019-20.
There is hardly three months left in 2019-20 FY and the Centre has urged to improve utilizing the funds released earlier to the State in POSHAN Abhiyan.