Bhubaneswar, Apr 13 (PTI) The Centre Wednesday called upon states to ensure nutritional rights of security for women and children apart from their good nutrition, gender equality and proper education in order to improve conditions of 69 per cent of the country’s population.
This was stated by Munjpara Mahendrabhai Kalubhai, Union Minister of State for Women and Child Development, while chairing the Ministry’s Zonal Conference of Eastern Region here. The state governments of Odisha, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand along with stakeholders participated in the conference.
“In this rapidly changing world, there is a need to build the human and social capital based on the pillars of good nutrition, gender equality, proper education and ensure the rights of security of women and children, who constitute 69 per cent of the country’s population,” the minister said.
He said keeping this in mind the Government of India have rolled out three missions Mission Poshan 2.0 to address the nutritional needs of women and children, Mission Shakti for women’s safety, security and empowerment and Mission Vatsalya for the welfare of children.
The minister also said that there is a need to make timely interventions across all generations to improve nutrition among women and children. The Poshan 2.0 programme aims to promote nutrition awareness and good eating habits for sustainable health, wellbeing and immunity, the Union Minister said.
“Our aim is to bring behavioural changes through local participation and accountability,” the minister said, adding that during the last five years the Centre have distributed 11.94 lakh Growth Monitoring Devices and 11 lakh three thousand smartphones to the Anganwadi workers and has rolled out the poshan trackers to improve governance and identify and ensure treatment of malnourished children.
He said Mission Vatsalya is aimed at supporting children in need of care by strengthening the existing statutory structure and delivery of emergency outreach services while Mission Shakti seeks to realise the government’s commitment to women-led development.
Now that all the COVID related restrictions are lifted, it is time to build a healthy society through focused interventions, he said.
“We are gathered here in this zonal conference to sensitize the states as they will be the implementing authorities of these schemes in the upcoming financial years,” the minister said.
Participating in the Conference, Odisha’s Women and Child Development Ministers Tukuni Sahu and West Bengal’s Shashi Panja, highlighted the steps and interventions taken by the respective states for the development and empowerment of women and children. Both the ministers assured full support for proper implementation of these three new missions.
Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, Indevar Pandey highlighted in detail the objectives and targets of the three new missions.
“Several targets under the Sustainable Development Goals are fast approaching in 2030. The three missions are aimed at achieving the targets and states are expected to be active partners in it,” he said.
The zonal conference of the east witnessed deliberation on a range of subjects related to the development and empowerment of women and children through focused interventions.