Now, children registered with anganwadis will not be deprived of their nutritious food even if they migrate to other states. They would be able to get their ration after through a nutrition tracker away from their home states, thanks to a Central government scheme.

Under the scheme, the Central Government has provided Aadhar Kits for Anganwadi Centres. The Aadhar cards of children can be easily accessed from all Anganwadi centers, after which they can be registered on the nutrition tracker. This will also ensure monitoring of the health of each child registered on the nutrition tracker.

Effective measures to be taken at the Anganwadi Centers of different districts of Gujarat are discussed in a two-day zonal meeting organised by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development at Kevadia, Gujarat. Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani, Secretary Indivar Pandey, Joint Director of Women and Child Development Department of Gujarat Avantika Darji, and other officials were present at this meeting.

In the meeting, the officials talked about the measures being taken at the Anganwadi centers of the state. AYUSH Take Home Ration (THR) has also been started to improve the health of children and women in six tribal areas of the state.

Joint Director in the state Women and Child Development Department, Avantika Darji said to eliminate malnutrition among children, a scheme has been started to make Aadhar cards for all the children coming to the Anganwadi centers. Along with this, the help of the AYUSH  THR is being taken to provide nutritious food to the children. With the Ayush THR, it is being ensured that there is no shortage of nutritional elements in the children. In this direction, Anganwadi workers are being taught to make around 70 types of dishes from THR.

He said that Aadhaar kits have been made available at the Anganwadi centers of the Narmada tribal area. Health monitoring of all the children aged between six months to six years is being undertaken in the district. Awareness is being created among parents with the help of social media about the significance of nutrition.

Himani, CDPO of the Narmada district, said an initiative is being taken to make the parents aware of the health of the children through social media. Women working in Anganwadi have been given training to track malnourished children. They are going from door to door making the parents of the children aware of their health needs. Anganwadi workers are also being taught to prepare 70 types of delicious dishes from the ration given to the children.

It is noteworthy here that the Ministry of Women and Child Development is making efforts to overcome the problem of malnutrition in children through Poshan 2.0. Nutrition Tracker is proving effective in ensuring that the ration is reaching the genuine beneficiaries.

According to preliminary data, the problem of malnutrition among children in the country has come down from 19 percent to 7 percent. However, a third-party investigation of this figure is yet to be done. According to NFHS, 5, 35.5 percent of children under five years of age were stunted while 32.1 percent were underweight in 2019-21. To tackle the malnutrition issue, the government has launched the POSHAN Abhiyaan under which initiatives such as the use of a nutrition tracker have been added.