As per the report of NFHS-4 conducted in 2015-16, 35.7% children under 5 years of age are underweight and 38.4% are stunted indicating a reduction from the previous NFHS – 3 conducted in 2005-06, which reported 42.5% children under 5 years of age as underweight and 48% stunted. Further, as per the report of Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) conducted during 2016-18, prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight among children is 34.7%, 17% and 33.4% respectively, which indicates further reduction when compared to the levels reported by NFHS-4; and hence an improvement from the previous status.

The Government has accorded high priority to the issue of malnutrition and is implementing several schemes like Anganwadi Services, Scheme for Adolescent Girls and Pradhan MantriMatruVandanaYojna (PMMVY) under the Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme as direct targeted interventions to address the problem of malnutrition in the country. Children with Severe Acute Malnutrition are treated at the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres established by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Further steps taken under the National Health Mission (NHM), a flagship programme of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, to address malnutrition inter alia include promotion of appropriate Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices, Anaemia Mukt Bharat, Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation, de-worming, promotion of iodized salt, Vitamin-A supplementation, Mission Indradhanush to ensure high coverage of vaccination in children, conducting intensified diarrhoea control fortnights to control childhood diarrhoea, management of sick severely malnourished children at Nutrition Rehabilitation Centers, monthly Village Health and Nutrition Days, Home Based Newborn Care (HBNC) and Home Based Young Child care (HBYC) programmes and Rashtriya Bal SwasthyaKaryakram.

Government set up POSHAN Abhiyaan on 18.12.2017 for a three-year time frame commencing from 2017-18 with an overall budget of Rs. 9046 Crore. To ensure a holistic approach, all 36 States/UTs and districts have been covered. The goals of POSHAN Abhiyaan are to achieve improvement in nutritional status of Children from 0-6 years, Adolescent Girls, Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers in a time bound manner during the three years with fixed targets as under:

Under the revised Anganwadi Services, besides delivering six services under the scheme to the beneficiaries, the existing provisions have been strengthened; the remuneration payable to the AWW/AWH has been increased and provision of Rs. 12,000/- per AWC for construction of toilets in 70,000 Government owned AWC buildings per year and Rs. 10,000/- per AWC for 20,000 AWCs per year for providing drinking water facilities has been made for the FY 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. Over the past years the number of Anganwadi Centres with Toilet Facilities has significantly increased from 698379 AWCs buildings as on 31.03.2015 to 1014655 AWCs as on 30.06.2019.  Similarly, drinking water facility has increased from 887293 AWCs as on 31.03.2015 to 1218027 AWCs as on 30.06.2019.  The number of operational projects and AWCs has increased to 7075 and 13.77 lakh respectively as on 30.06.2019.

The Abhiyaan aims to reduce malnutrition in the country in a phased manner, through a life cycle approach, by adopting a synergised and result oriented approach. The Abhiyaan will ensure mechanisms for timely service delivery and a robust monitoring as well as intervention infrastructure. Target is to bring down stunting of the children in the age group of 0-6 years from 38.4% to 25% by the year 2022. The major activities undertaken under this Abhiyaan are ensuring convergence with various other programmes; Information Technology enabled Common Application Software for strengthening service delivery and interventions; Community Mobilization and Awareness Advocacy leading to Jan Andolan- to educate the people on nutritional aspects; Capacity Building of Frontline Functionaries, incentivizing States/ UTs for achieving goals etc. The State-wise funds allocated and utilized is given below:

• POSHAN Abhiyaan approved on 18.12.2017

This information was given by the Minister of Women and Child Development, SmritiZubinIrani, in a written reply in the LokSabha today.

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MM/ SB