Ayush, WCD to provide nutritional needs to adolescent girls in five dists

New Delhi: To provide nutritional help to adolescent girls suffering from anaemia, the women and child development (WCD) ministry as well as the ministry of AYUSH on Monday announced that they will be providing interventions such as ayurveda, yoga and nutritional help of natural foods in five districts where the nutritional parameter are low.

An MoU was signed between the two ministries on Monday at the Vigyan Bhawan; Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and Smriti Irani were both present.

The project will be rolled out in five districts, identified as aspirational, and include Dhubri in Assam, Bastar in Chhattisgarh, Paschimi Singhbhum in Jharkhand, Gadchiroli in Maharashtra and Dhaulpur in Rajasthan. The Centre said that approximately 95,000 adolescent girls in these anaemia-prone districts, where the average prevalence of anaemia is approximately 69.5 per cent, will benefit and the project will cover around 10,000 anganwadi centres.

For the year-long project, the coordinating agency will be the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS), and classical Ayurveda medicines such as Drakshavaleha and Punarnavadi mandoor will be provided for “better nutrition to improve the health” of the anemic adolescent girls for three months, the WCD ministry said.

WCD minister Irani said, for the first time, the Centre is roping in the Indian Council of Medical Research to evaluate the interventions of Ayush, and that the WCD ministry will take up a collaboration with the Ministry of Ayush and ICMR for effective interventions like Yoga in Polycystic Ovarian Disease (PCOD) among adolescent girls.

The Ayush ministry said that the CCRAS has been conducting clinical trials in addition to some public health initiatives such as the National Campaign on Anaemia Control through Ayurveda medicines. Till now, this campaign has been conducted at 323 health centres in 13 states of the country. “…a multi-level operational study at PHCs (public health centres) in the Gadchiroli District regarding the effectiveness of Ayurvedic Interventions for Ante-Natal care (Garbhini Paricharya) with change in haemoglobin level as an outcome is already implemented successfully by CCRAS,” the Ayush ministry said.