Anti-malnutrition drive in Jharkhand went on mission mode as the State Government today unveiled State Nutrition Mission (SNM) to achieve specific goals in the span of 10-years to check malnutrition by focusing on the health of mother and child at the same time better monitoring, coordination and convergence of responsibilities of various Government departments.
The mission envisages multi-layer approach to the cause coupled with prompt monitoring of schemes and its implementation, policy adjustments and propagation of better ideas to address nutritional challenges among infants and women. The Mission was launched by Chief Minister Raghubar Das here and soon after a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Mission and the UNICEF to bring down malnutrition in the State.
“We have to make a malnutrition free state in next 10-years. Now that measurable steps have been taken the State would become free of malnutrition in 10-years,” said Das adding, “in a bid to provide nutrition to infants while his growth starts from the time of conception, a time frame of 10,000 days, set by the UNICEF would definitely help the mission”.
The MoU was signed by State Mission Director of State Nutrition Mission, Vinay Kumar Choubey and Chief of Field Service, UNICEF, Foroogh Foyouzot here in the presence of Minister Social Welfare, Women and Child Development, louis Marandi; Principal Secretary of department of Health, K Vidyasagar; Principal Secretary to CM, Sanjay Kumar and Secretary to CM, Sunil Barnwal.
The SNM would meet its objective through various committees from the Directorate down to the block level as a great deal of focus would be to streamline existing schemes and ensure deliverability. The five-layered structure of the mission comprises--Mission Steering Committee which will be headed by the CM and it will meet once in a year; State Executive Committee to be headed by Chief Secretary; State Monitoring and Implementation Committee under the chairmanship of State Mission Director; District-level Nutritional Task Force and Block-level Nutritional Task Force.
Even as the Mission envisages pressing existing infrastructure and using the existing human resource for meeting its objective, Marandi emphasised on strengthening Anganwadi to aid better implementation of schemes related to nutrition projects. Inviting CSR funds for upgrading Aanganwadis also cropped up during the discussion to end malnutrition.
“Around 38,432 such Aanganbadi centres are operating 224 such projects across the State”, she said adding that tribal women living in rural areas were most malnourished in the State.
The mission has set targets to bring down the number of underweight, stunted and low birth weight babies by 20 per cent; wasting by 10 per cent prevalence of anaemia among adolescents by 20 per cent and increase the number of children (0-5 years) exclusively breastfeeding by 20 per cent. However, emphasis was made on capacity building and bringing society on board to fight the curse of malnutrition in the State.
“We need to change social practices, working first and foremost with communities and families to reach children during that critical first 1,000-day period in a child’s life,” maintained Vidyasagar adding “malnutrition is a challenge which could be dealt with a better coordination among Education, Health, Women and Child Welfare and PHED departments”.
The SNM will provide technical leadership to guide and assist the multi-sectoral plans for nutrition specific and sensitive interventions. The Mission will contribute by recommending, to departments evidence based innovative initiatives; improving monitoring and reporting systems for quality and coverage of nutrition interventions; generating evidence for informed action. The Chief of Field Service, UNICEF lauded the State Government’s effort and cited the need for taking anti-malnutrition drive on mission mode.
Foyouzat said, “I would like to laud the Government of Jharkhand for setting up a State Nutrition Mission as an advocacy body, which will perform advisory, coordination and knowledge management functions”.
Chief of UNICEF Jharkhand, Madhulika Jonathan maintained that nutrition has to be a social movement so that it could increase accountability of providers and increases participation of children and mothers.