September 1, 2018
Bangla shows the way in ensuring nutrition for children
National Nutrition Week begins today. Here are the important steps taken by the Trinamool Congress Government for improving various aspects of nutrition in the State:
Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre (NRC): To provide treatment to the severely malnourished children and to educate those families on nutrition, 51 NRCs have been established in different districts in the last seven years. Fifteen of these are in the western region of the State, known as Paschimanchal, under the Paschimanchal Unnayan Affairs Department.
Increase in government expenditure on social infrastructure: The expenditure on social Infrastructure has increased more than four times from Rs 6,845 crore in financial year (FY) 2010-11 to Rs 28,561 crore in FY 2017-18. Social infrastructure includes nutrition, education, sports, art & culture, health & family welfare, water supply, sanitation, housing, information & broadcasting, labour & labour welfare, welfare of SC, ST and OBC, and social welfare.
Anganwadi centres (AWC): Anganwadi services under ICDS comprise the largest child nutrition intervention under the ICDS programme, reaching out to 76 lakh children below six years and 14 lakh pregnant and lactating women spread across 23 districts, through 1,15,384 operational AWCs. A new Directorate for ICDS was created in 2015 for putting special focus on child health and nutrition.
State Nutrition Mission: From July 3, 2017, the State Nutrition Mission started functioning as a multi-sectoral strategy to reduce undernutrition and anaemia among women and children in a targeted manner by 2020.
Additional nutrition for severely malnourished children: Additional nutrition was provided for identified severely malnourished children by the Women & Child Development and Social Welfare Department at a rate of Rs 4 per head per day from FY 2015-16.
Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG, erstwhile SABLA): The Scheme for Adolescent Girls aims to improve the nutritional and health status of 12.72 lakh adolescent girls (11 to 18 years of age, both in school and out-of-school) in Bangla and to equip them with life skills. SAG was initially implemented on a pilot basis in seven districts, namely Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Malda, Nadia, Kolkata and Purulia.
Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY): Kishori Shakti Yojana has been implemented across all the 16 districts where SABLA is not being implemented. Under KSY, about 11,000 adolescent girls received vocational training and about 54,000 girls received nutrition and health awareness training.
Vision, Mission & SDG Perspective Plan for 2020, 2025 & 2030 and State
Plan of Action for Children (2014-18): The Women & Child Development and Social Welfare Department has developed the Vision, Mission & Perspective Plan on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The department has developed the State Plan of Action for Children (SPAC-2014-18) as a convergent review platform to assess the performance of existing government schemes and programmes related to children in the State across six themes namely: Nutrition, Health, Education, Water Sanitation & Hygiene and Child Protection.
Nutritional package for severely acute malnourished (SAM) children: A special drive in association with the Health and Family Welfare Department has been taken up to provide free-of-cost nutritional support (package of 5kg rice, 2.5kg wheat, 1kg masoor dal and 1kg Bengal gram per month) to approximately 5,200 severely acute malnourished (SAM) children and their mothers, with effect from FY 2014-15.
