Govt to provide Nutrition to Children with no Anganwadi Centres

Bhubaneswar: Odisha government will soon roll o u t ‘ P a d a P u s h t i K a r y a k r a m ’ , a programme to extend
supplementary nutrition to children in the age group of three to six years residing in villages that are hard-to-reach and have no Anganwadi centres in the area. A c c o r d i n g t o t h e government report, there are 2,543 hard-to-reach
villages across the state. Recently, the Women and Ch il d De v e l o pme n t  d e p a rt m e n t d ir e c t e d collectors of all districts to identify Pusti Sakhi, an SHG member who will run the programme in the identified village, and the children who would be covered under it. In case there are no SHGs in the village, the mother of a child in the three to six years a g e g r o u p w i l l b e acknowledged as a resource p e r s o n t o r u n t h e programme. The Pusti Sakhis will be responsible for bringing dry ration from the nearest Anganwadi centre on the first of every month, cooking and distributing the food among the children. The children will be fed for six days a week for a minimum of 300 days a year. While the hot cooked food will include rice, dal, vegetables, and ‘saag’, eggs, the morning snacks will
have a ladoo made of either millet, besan, or wheat flour be side s, ‘ chuda ’ and sprouted moong. While the
children will be fed in groups at a common location in the village, the Pusti Sakhi may prepare the food at her house. “This programme is temporary in nature till the children of the vulnerable age group are in the pada (village or hamlet). A register on the programme will be maintained by the Pusti Sakhis which will be collected by the Anganwadi worker of the nearest centre every month to be verified by the ICDS supervisor and CDPO,” TNIE reported the additional secretary of the department NC Jyoti Nayak as saying. Meanwhile, the growth of the
children in the hard-to-reach areas will be monitored every month a t the ne a r e st Anganwadi centre through
the POSHAN tracker. Besides, the ICDS supervisor will visit the village once e v e r y mo n t h t o t a k e measurements of all the children. Notably, an Anganwadi centre can be opened in a village that has a minimum
population of 150. However, villages with a population of less than 150 are tagged to the nearby Anganwadi centre.

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