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Government wants to team up with corporates, NGOs for Nutrition Mission Plan

NEW DELHI: To give a boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s National Nutrition Mission Plan, also called Poshan Abhiyan, the government is calling upon the corporate sector to chip in and adopt a district under the CSR wing.

Officials at the Women and Child Ministry said that the government is specifically looking at collaborations with corporates and NGOs in the 115 districts that are part of the ‘aspirational’ district programme monitored by the Niti Aayog.

These districts were found lagging behind on a set of development indices, nutrition of children and women forming a major chunk of them.

The ministry is looking at roping in companies to fund activities such as training of anganwadi and health volunteers on data compilation, for running community-based programmes in these ‘adopted’ districts and spreading information related to malnutrition as part of the the Jan Andolan segment that aims to make the cause of nutrition a social movement through a network of community workers, anganwadi and health workers and young professionals volunteering with the district administration.

So far, the ministry has worked with organisations such as the World Bank and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to roll out the ICDS-CAS dashboard in 57 districts of seven states — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana — to monitor data and services delivered by anaganwadi centres in real time. Currently, there are 95 lakh beneficiaries listed under 1.2 lakh anganwadis mapped by the dashboard.

While the plan is to get all 550 districts on board by next year, the dashboard is expected to target 14 lakh anganwadis that remain at the frontline for keeping a tab on the nutritional needs and health pregnant women and new born children.

“Tata Trusts is helping us hire young professionals to work with distric magistrates and coordinate with the various stakeholding ministries and departments,” secretary Rakesh Srivastava said. “We are looking at all sorts of collaborations — be it training workers in IT, capacity building or managing behavorial change,” he added.

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