Government plans survey to check health of its nutrition mission

After launching ‘Poshan Abhiyan’ from Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu in March, the Union government now plans to conduct a survey to check the efficacy of the nutrition scheme that aims to reduce malnutrition among children and mothers. People aware of the matter told ET that the ministry of women and child development will be in charge of conducting the survey, which will be conducted in three phases till March 2020. The ministry will hire an agency for the task.

The proposed survey’s first report— covering a sample of 100,000 ‘anganwadis’—is expected to come in by March 2019. There are nearly 1.4 m ‘anganwadis’ across the country and all will be surveyed in a phased manner, the persons cited earlier said.

While the broad parameters defined by the government involve upgradation of ‘anganwadi’ infrastructure and the success of the ‘Jan Andolan’ month celebrated in September as a measure to mobilise a network of community workers, ‘anganwadi’ and health workers and young professionals volunteering with the district administration, the government is primarily looking. at testing the impact of using technology as part of the initiative.


This includes checking on the efficacy of the ICDS-CAS dashboard in 57 districts of seven states — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana — to monitor data and services delivered by ‘anaganwadi’ centres in real time. Currently, there are 9.5 million beneficiaries listed under 120,000 ‘anganwadis’ mapped by the dashboard which was developed in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank.

To facilitate the functioning of this dashboard, over 200,000 smartphones have been procured by the states to aid ‘anganwadis’ in monitoring nutrition levels in children. These phones come uploaded with an application that facilitates real-time data reporting from the grassroot level and is expected to come in handy in drawing a nutrition profile of the country, the sources said.

As per data submit ted in Parliament, the Centre has released Rs 1,537 crore to the states for the mission.