State to observe September as ‘Nutrition Month’

The state will observe September as ‘nutrition month’ (poshan mah) to cut stunting (low height for age) and wasting (low weight for height) by 2% every year until 2022. Door-to-door nutrition campaigns will be held in September in all rural and urban areas.

The woman and child development (DWCD) department, along with other departments, will undertake the door-to-door awareness campaign, chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s announcement on August 15 at a state-level function at Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur. Frontline workers, including auxiliary nurse midwives, accredited social health activists and anganwari workers, sarpanchs and others influential people of the community will work together to create awareness among pregnant women and mothers as well as adolescent girls.

Raje also announced that children in classes 1 to 8 in government schools will be given milk daily under the mid-day meal scheme from September. At present, they are being given milk thrice a week under the Annapurna Milk Scheme, launched in the state on July 2. Similarly, she also announced that milk will be provided thrice a week at anganwari centres to children aged 3-6, pregnant and lactating mothers and adolescent girls along with nutritional supplements.

DWCD principal secretary Roli Singh said integrated child development services (ICDS), health and panchayati raj and rural development departments and education department will start the convergence in September.

“Anganwari workers have been given directions and they will meet people by going door-todoor creating awareness about nutrition. They will tell people to have the right kind of food, exclusive breastfeeding to newborns for six months, giving complementary food to children six months etc,” said Singh. Publicity campaigns will be launched in local languages so that people understand and take part in the public movement against undernutrition, she added.

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