PM directed to convey the approval of the Central Gov. for the execution of Centrally Sponsored Scheme “Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) for offering one hot cooked meal in Gov. and Gov.-aided schools from 2021-22 to 2025-26, earlier familiar as ‘National Programme for Mid-Day Meal in.
Contents
What are the advantages of the mid-day meal scheme?
The scheme aims to:
- Ignore classroom hunger.
- Raise school enrolment.
- Raise school attendance.
- Raise socialization among castes.
- Address malnutrition.
- Authorize women through employment.
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Features
- The POSHAN Abhiyaan, as a top body, will supervise, monitor, fix targets and guide the nutrition-associated interventions across the Ministries.
- The proposal consists of
- mapping of different Schemes given towards addressing malnutrition
- introduce a pretty strong convergence mechanism
- ICT build Real-Time Monitoring system
- incentivizing UTs/States to meet the targets
- Motivating Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) for utilizing IT-based tools
- eliminate registers utilized by AWWs
- introduce the measurement of the height of kids at Anganwadi Centres (AWCs)
- Social Audits
Scheme
- POSHAN Abhiyaan was introduced by PM in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan in March 2018.
- It aims to eliminate the level of under-nutrition and other connected issues by ensuring the convergence of different nutrition-connected schemes.
- It also aims at stunting, undernourishment, anemia (among adolescent girls, young kids, and women), and a lesser birth rate.
- It will review and monitor the execution of all such plans and use existing structural arrangements of line ministries wherever present.
- Its larger chunk involves gradual scaling-up of involvement held up by ongoing World Bank assisted ICDS Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project (ISSNIP) to all districts in the nation by 2022.
What do you mean by the Mid-Day Meal plan?
The plan was introduced to raise school enrolment and refine the nutritional status of millions of undernourished kids across the nation.
What is PM POSHAN?
It is a revamped version of the existing Mid-Day Meal plan. Meals will now be an end to students studying in pre-primary levels or Bal Vatikas of gov. and gov.-aided primary schools, along with those already covered under the yojana.
It is presumed to profit 11.80 crore kids studying in 11.20 lakh schools across India.
Mid-day Meal Scheme
- Scheme (under Ministry of Education)is a centrally sponsored plan which was introduced in 1995.
- It is regarded as the globe hugest school meal programtarget to acquire the goal of universalization of primary education.
- Provided cooked meals to every kidwithin the age group of fourteen to six years studying out in classes I to VIII who attend and enroll in the school.
- If the Mid-Day Meal is not given in school on any school day time due to inaccessibility of food grains or several other reasoning, the State Gov. shall payfood security ration by 15th of the succeeding month.
Key Points
- PM POSHAN:
Coverage:-
- The plan will support hundred crore students register inclasses 1 to 8 in over a thousand lakh schools across the country.
- The yojana will behold out to students studying in Balvatikas or pre-primary running in gov. and gov. aided primary schools.
- Balvatikais the pre-school that began in gov. schools last year to involve children aged junior to six years in the formal education structure.
Nutritional Gardens :-
- The gov. will encourage nutritional gardensin schools. The gardens are being given to providing additional micro-nutrients to students.
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Supplementary Nutrition :-
- The new plan has a facility forsupplementary nutrition for kids in desired districts and those with a higher prevalence of anemia .It does away with the limitation on the chunk of the Centreto offer funds only for vegetables, rice, pulses, and wheat.
- Presently, if a state decides to add up any element like eggs or milk to the menu, the Centre does not support the additional cost. Now that limitation has been lifted.
Tithi Bhojan Concept
- The idea ofTithiBhojan will be encouraged big time.
- It is a community participation programin which individuals offer special meals to kids at special festivals/occasions.
Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT)
- The central gov. will make certain Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) from schools to states,which will utilize it to cover cooking costs.
- Earlier cash was assigned to the states, which then involved their share of the money before sending it to a nodal midday meal plan control at tehsil and district levels.
- This is tomake certain no leakages at the level of district administration and other authorities.
Nutrition Expert:-
- A nutrition expert is to be appointed in every schoolwhose responsibility is to make certain that health aspects like hemoglobin, BMI, and weight levels are addressed.
Social Audit of the Scheme:-
- The yojana has also been mandatedfor every school in each state to study the execution of the scheme, which was so far not being agreed upon by all states.
- The Ministry of Educationwill also engage university and college students to monitor the plan at the local level.
Fund Sharing:-
- The Centre will bear a thousand croreof the total estimated cost of Rs 1.3 lakh crore, with states paying Rs 31,733 crore (Rs 45,000 crore will be released out by the Centre as subsidies for food grains).
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Vocal for Local for Atmanirbhar Bharat:-
- Involvement of Women Self Help Groupsand Farmers Producer Organizations (FPO) in the execution of the plan will be encouraged.
- Utilization of locally grown traditional food items for a fillip to local economic progress will be motivated.
Challenges :-
Meeting Nutrition Targets:
- Our nation is among 88 countries that are most likely to miss out on global nutrition targets by 2025 as per Global Nutrition Report 2020.
Serious ‘Hunger’ Level:-
- Our country has been ranked at 94 among 107 countries in the GHI 2020.India has a layer of hunger that is “serious”.
Menace of Malnutrition:-
- As per the National Family Health Survey-5, few states across the nation have reversed course and recorded worsened extent of child malnutrition.
- Our country is home to about 30% of the globe’s stunted kids and nearly 50% of severely wasted kids under the age of five.
Others:-
- Discrimination and Corrupt practices and Caste Bias in providing a meal.