Centre’s POSHAN scheme for all dists

The flagship nutrition programme of the Centre - POSHAN Abhiyaan - will be implemented in all districts of Karnataka, Chief Minister Yediyurappa announced on Friday.

Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani reviewed the implementation of the scheme with Yediyurappa and the state’s Women and Child Development Minister Shashikala Jolle.

Yediyurappa said that the State Cabinet had already approved the implementation of the project in 19 districts. “We will implement it in the 11 remaining districts soon,” he said.

POSHAN or PM’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment was launched by the Central government with an objective to improve nutrition prominently among children and women. While 9 districts were selected under the first phase of the scheme in 2017-18, 10 were selected in the second phase.

During the meeting chaired at Krishna, Irani also directed the officials of the State government to improve the pace at which the implementation data was uploaded to the Union Ministry dashboard. According to the POSHAN Abhiyaan website, the ‘Performance by Participation’ of Karnataka is marked as ‘below average’.

“The major objective of the programme is to reduce anemia, malnutrition and other issues affecting children. While extending complete support for the project, the State should also ensure that NGOs too participate in the scheme,” she said.

She said that though infant mortality rate has reduced by half - from 50 per 1,000 births to 25, measures should be taken to reduce it further.