January 12, 2020 by admin

Three years on, a mere 0.45% of ‘Poshan Abhiyaan’ funds used

Patiala

Despite children in the state having micronutrient dietary deficiency, Punjab could utilise merely 0.45 per cent of the allocated funds under the “Poshan Abhiyaan” — the PM’s flagship programme to improve nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers.

According to the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, Punjab has been the worst performer in fund utilisation since the launch of the scheme in 2017. Of the Rs69.09 crore released by the Centre in 2017-18 and 2018-19, the state spent merely Rs30.88 lakh. Considering the huge unspent amount in the last two financial years, the Centre did not release more funds to Punjab in 2019-20.

The “Poshan Abhiyaan”, also called the National Nutrition Mission, aims at bringing down the stunting of children aged 0-6 years from 38.4 per cent to 25 per cent by 2022.Experts said the dismal utilisation of funds was sheer callousness of the state as 67.2 per cent of the preschoolers (0-4 years) were already iron deficient as per the Comprehensive National Nutritional Survey (CNNS), 2016-18, of the MoHFW released in October last year.

Gurpreet Kaur Sapra, special secretary, Department of Social Security and Development of Women and Children, said: “There was delay in purchase of the growth monitoring devices and smart phones for around 27,314 anganwadi centres in the state. Soon, funds will be utilised under the scheme.”