Various activities are underway in districts under Atal Bihari Vajpayee Child Health and Nutrition Mission for eradicating malnutrition in Madhya Pradesh and improving children’s nutritional status. Directives have been given to chalk out special action plan for Khandwa district’s Khalwa development block and 15 ultra-sensitive districts pointed out by the N.I.N. (National Institute of Nutrition) Hyderabad. Mission’s website is also being developed for monitoring and evaluation of its works. Health camps are being organised in districts. Besides, initiative has also been taken for special survey to identify extremely underweight and underweight children.
Under the Atal Bal Mitra Yojna, cooperation from private sector is also being sought in districts for construction of Anganwadi centres, toys, clothes, health facilities, furniture, nutritious diet etc. In Bhind district, nutrition and consultation sessions are being held in Anganwadi centres. At these programmes mothers of extremely underweight children, expectant mothers, their friends and members of Village Health Committees are oriented towards hygiene, sanitation, health etc. As additional diet, extremely underweight children are provided ‘besan laddu’ and nutiritous ‘panjeeri’. Software ‘Vatsalya’ has been developed for monitoring of malnourished children in Rajgarh district. Information about children’s health and nutrition is given at Bal Chaupal programme at Panchayat-level in Vidisha district.
Follow-up of lactating mothers, expectant mothers in last quarter of pregnancy and NRC-treated children is being done at Kilkari centres of Khalwa and Pandhana in Khandwa district. In Betul district, daily reports are received from Anganwadi centres on a website developed over there. World Vision international organisation has adopted 73 villages in Betul district where medicated mosquito-nets have been provided to extremely underweight children. Goats have also been provided to families of some children. Health camps are being organised at project-level in Umaria district. As many as 2318 children have been adopted in Ashok Nagar district. These children have been given clothes as incentive to attend Anganwadi centres regularly.
Ahilya Card is being used for compiling information about weight of mothers and children in Indore district. Discussions are being made on various community-based issues under Project Sambal in Balaghat district. Vatsalya software has been introduced online in Chhindwara district. Information about nutritious and balanced diet’s preparation is being given at centre-level in Vatsalya Clubs. Simultaneous test was held at ten ICDS centres in Shajapur district for gauging quality and quantum of Anganwadi workers’ functioning. Milk, banana, khichadi and pulses are being served as nutritious diet in Burhanpur district. Jaggery, gram and ‘mathri’ is being provided as four nutritious diet in Dewas. Atal Sattus is being provided to over 20 thousand extremely underweight children in Dhar district. Milk, banana, seasonal fruit and khichadi is being served to children in Khargone district. In Bhopal district, 1618 centres have been set up under Poshan Sahyogini unit where recipe of preparing nutritious diet with easily available and low-cost cereals is taught every fourth Tuesday by master trainers. Nutritious Kitchen competition is also held and prizes given to winner women.
Similarly, 9,038 extremely underweight children have been benefited by Nutri Corners at 425 centres under 14 projects in Satna district. Nutri Corners have also been set up at 200 centres in Narsinghpur district. Nutritious diet as fourth meal is sent through tiffin to the houses of extremely underweight children in Guna district. Nutritious ‘sattu’ to children and special nutritious diet in the form of roasted wheat, gram and peanuts are being provided to anaemic women in Alirajpur district. ‘Halwa’ and mixture of wheat, jaggery, gram and groundnut beans is given as additional nutritious diet in Ujjain district.