West Bengal adopted most elements of Poshan Abhiyan: Smriti Irani

 Union minister Smriti Irani on Monday said though West Bengal does not get involved in any central government program, it has adopted most elements of the Poshan Abhiyan.

"They have adopted most of the Poshan Abhiyan elements. They would not like to declare it and I am fine with it as long as we get the job is done (implementation of Poshan Abhiyan)," she said. 'Poshan Abhiyan' is a Central government program launched with the aim of reducing the levels of stunting, undernutrition, anemia and low birth weight in children. It aims to achieve a reduction in stunting from 38.4 per cent, as per a National Family Health Survey of 2015-16, to 25 per cent by 2022.

Irani said she has been meeting chief ministers of different states to look into the implementation of the scheme. "We ask the states to get on board. We tell the states that it is not about politics but lives of women and children who are not political tools," she said. "West Bengal, which does not get involved in any of the Government of India progammes made sure that we sat at least at the officer-level if not at the political level to bridge those gaps."

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The minister was speaking at the inaugural session of 'Towards a Malnutrition Free India: a northern regional workshop on best practices and innovations from Poshan Abhiyaan' organised by the Observer Research Foundation. Irani said that on Monday she also met Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb to deliberate on effective ways to make the state a leading one in the fight against malnutrition among children and women.

She said the greatest myths surrounding malnutrition are that it is a problem of the poor and impacts only women and children living in rural parts of the country. The Union minister said it has been found that people do not realise that locally available foods are sufficient to take care of their nutritional needs in many cases. NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, who was also present at the event, said that to tackle the problem there is a need to leverage technology, introduce real-time monitoring and capacity building. "Malnutrition is India's biggest challenge and it has been seen that the economic cost of malnutrition is very very high," he said.

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