Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition (POSHAN) Abhiyaan: An Analysis

While India’s malnutrition rates have improved over the recent years, the country is still home to the largest number of stunted and wasted children in the world. To combat the dismal state of nutrition in the country, the government launched the Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment (POSHAN) Abhiyaan (‘movement’) in 2017, a flagship mission that aims at a convergence mechanism for the country’s response to malnutrition.” “Despite several programmes targeted towards improving the health and nutrition of women and children, we have not been able to solve this persistent problem. The ICDS programme is India’s primary intervention in this area. However, despite being implemented for decades now, the results of the programme are sub-optimal at best. In order to secure the well-being of the children, and to fully realize the growth potential and capitalize on the demographic dividend; India needs drastic reductions in the prevalence of malnutrition.” “This paper analyses the reasons due to which under-nutrition continues to remain a threat and presents the current strategy of the government to curb it. The researchers present a theoretical analysis of the developmental aspects utilized in the schemes that are being implemented. The paper argues that without channelizing cross-sectoral interventions towards the first 1000 days, achieving geographic and programmatic convergence and creating a janandolan, success in this area is highly unlikely.