Government has accorded high priority to the issue of malnutrition and is committed to improve nutrition outcomes in the country. Anganwadi Services, Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana and Scheme for Adolescent Girls under the Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services Scheme (ICDS) are targeted interventions to address the problem of malnutrition in the country.

  Government has taken measures to strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach and outcomes with focus on developing practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity to disease and malnutrition. Steps have also been taken to improve nutritional quality and testing, strengthen delivery and leverage technology under the Poshan Tracker, a robust ICT enabled platform, to improve governance with regard to real time monitoring of provisioning of supplementary nutrition for prompt supervisions and management of services.

  Guidelines on Quality Assurance, Roles and Responsibilities of Duty Holders, procedure for procurement, for transparency, efficiency and accountability in delivery of Supplementary Nutrition have been streamlined. Government has advised States/UTs to ensure that the quality of supplementary nutrition conforms to prescribed standards laid down under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and regulations made thereunder. States/UTs have also been advised to promote use of AYUSH systems for prevention of malnutrition and related diseases. A programme to support development of Poshan Vatikas at Anganwadi centres to meet dietary diversity gap leveraging traditional knowledge in nutritional practices has also been taken up.   Mission Poshan 2.0, an integrated nutrition support programme, has been announced in Budget 2021-22.

This information was given by the Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.

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BY/TFK