Hindustan Times ST (Jaipur)

State to observe September as ‘Nutrition Month’

- HT Correspond­ent htraj@hindustant­imes.com

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.

JAIPUR:

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