Objectives of the National Nutrition Mission
- The mission’s main objective is to reduce undernutrition and enhance the nutritional status of children in the country.
- The mission is a multi-ministerial scheme with the goal of eliminating malnutrition in the country by 2022.
- The National Nutrition Mission intends to reduce stunting from 38.4 percent to 25 percent by 2022, according to ‘Mission 25 by 2020.’
- Another aspect of the mission is the gradual scaling up of interventions under the World Bank-supported Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Systems.
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.