National Nutrition Mission Achievements
- Three years into the mission, its flagship initiative has yet to meet its objectives. According to information provided by Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani, the Centre distributed a total of 4,283 crores to various States and Union Territories.
- Despite the fact that funds were granted to 19 states in 2019-20, only 12 of them had used less than a third of the funds released in the previous two years. Mizoram, Lakshadweep, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, and Meghalaya were the top performers. Punjab, Karnataka, Kerala, Jharkhand, and Assam were the worst performers.
Importance of National Nutrition Mission
The Government of India began the National Nutrition Mission (NNM), also known as the Poshan Abhiyaan, in 2018 (although the program was begun in 2017), with the aim of addressing India’s malnutrition problem. The term ‘Poshan’ in the program’s name refers to the Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition. The National Nutrition Mission is India’s flagship program aimed at improving the nutritional status of adolescents, children, pregnant women, and lactating mothers. It is supported by the NITI Aayog’s National Nutrition Strategy, which aims to achieve “Kuposhan Mukt Bharat,” or malnutrition-free India, by 2022. Stunting, undernutrition, anaemia (among young children, women, and adolescent girls), and low birth weight will be reduced by 2%, 2%, 3%, and 2% every year, respectively. In a mission mode, address the problem of malnutrition.