Poshan Abiyaan now a mass movement: Niti Aayog VC

New Delhi, Jun 28 :Convergence and behavioural change are the two pillars of National Nutrition Mission (NNM), which has turned into a mass movement now, Niti Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar said today.

The mission aims to reduce stunting, undernutrition, anaemia among children, women and adolescent girls along with reducing low birth weight in the country.

"Convergence and behavioural change are the two pillars of Poshan Abhiyaan (NNM). The united efforts of our stakeholders are positively impacting the health of our women and children.

"The mission's momentum has been accelerated into a Jan Andolan (mass movement)," Kumar said while addressing seminar 'TECH-THON : Technology Partnerships for Poshan Abhiyaan.'

He stressed on the need to devise a multi-faceted strategy to deal with the issue of malnutrition as 38 per cent of children in India are still undernourished.

Niti Aayog member V K Paul said the Integrated Child Development Services-Common Application Software (ICDS-CAS) tool has empowered NNM's multi-faceted initiatives and this can be accorded as the biggest IT intervention in public health domain.

Paul further pointed out that optimum complementary feeding coupled with adequate breastfeeding and timely management of common illnesses are game changers during the first 1,000 days of a child.

"Around 90 per cent of children between the age group of 6 months to 2 years are nutrition hungry and diarrhea contributes to 25 per cent of undernutrition," he noted.

NNM was launched on March 8 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The mission, under Ministry of Women and Child Development, has a target to bring down stunting among age group of 0-6 years to 25 per cent by 2022.