Community management of malnutrition extended to all districts

Bhubaneswar: The state government on Saturday decided to extend Community Management of Malnutrition Programme to all 30 districts of the state.

The decision was taken in the State Empowered Committee Meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi.

According to official sources, the programme would be implemented in convergence with Health and Family Welfare department. Women and Child Development Department, UNICEF and Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives would be partners in the programme, which has successfully been piloted in Kandhamal and Balangir districts.

Director of social welfare department D Prasant Kumar Reddy said children with acute malnutrition would be treated with ready to use therapeutic food and energy density therapeutic food through anganwadi centres. Primarily around 4,300 children have been identified as suffering from acute malnutrition, he said.

The government has prioritized infant mortality rate and maternal mortality ratio reduction strategies through a multi-pronged converged model in which nutrition finds a prominent mention, Padhi said. He has directed the Women and Child Welfare Department to strengthen internal monitoring system and ensure cent per cent flow of supplementary nutrition to the targeted group.

Around Rs.808.98 crore was earmarked towards supplementary nutrition programme in the Annual Programme Implementation Plan of ICDS for 2017-18, the sources said.

Meanwhile, state-level training of trainers has been completed. Capacity building training of the frontline workers and ICDS personnel would be conducted shortly. Massive community awareness and mobilization activities would also be undertaken at village and community level, the sources added.

The meeting also decided to revitalise crèche and day care facilities in the state. It has been proposed to set up 3629 AWC-cum-creche centres in the 1stphase during 2017-18

Initiating the process for ISSNIP (ICDS Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Programme) in Odisha was also discussed in the meeting. It was decided to pilot the programme in Khurdha district during the current year. The project would be a kind of ICT-based monitoring of ICDS activities. For the purpose, an application software has been developed and shared with the Central Government.

Under this programme, each anganwadi worker would be provided with a smartphone and each supervisor would be given a tablet. They would upload the IMS forms through these devices, Reddy said.