India celebrates 5th Poshan Maah 2022- flagship programme

During the fifth Rashtriya Poshan Maah (September 1-30, 2022) more than 15 crore activities were conducted under various themes, across India, contributing to the vision for a Suposhit Bharat. Poshan ( Prime Minister's Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition) Abhiyaan aims to address the challenge of malnutrition in a mission-mode. It is the Government of India's (GOI) flagship programme to improve nutritional outcomes for children under 6 years of age, pregnant women and lactating mothers. Mission Poshan 2.0 (Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0) were launched as an integrated nutrition support programme to strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach and outcomes with focus on developing practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity to disease and malnutrition. For anaemia prevention and treatment in children, adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating mothers, various activities such as T3 camps (test, treat, talk), iron-folic acid supplement distribution, seminars, Ayush for anaemia, webinars, quiz and recipe competition, traditional food practices, awareness rallies were conducted throughout the country. As part of its comprehensive strategy to tackle anaemia, the GOI has included staple food fortification from central ministries for schemes/ programmes in multiple states. As a part of the Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) strategy under Jan Andolan, around 6,278 anaemia camps, 1,853 outreach activities in urban slums, 855 quiz competitions for students, and 1,63,436 activities were carried out on anaemia during Poshan Pakhwada, 2022 in March. This year, the Gram Panchayats were triggered to be the focal points of all the activities during Poshan Maah with key focus on “Mahila aur Swasthya” and “Bacha aur Shiksha”.