Which of the following strategies is/are adopted for implementing the POSHAN Abhiyaan? 1. Inter-sectoral convergence for better service delivery 2. Use of technology (ICT) for real-time growth monitoring of women and children Select the correct answer using the code given below.
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Correct — C, Both 1 and 2. POSHAN Abhiyaan was designed around the fact that a malnourished child is never the product of one department's failure. Whether a two-year-old grows depends on what the anganwadi feeds her, whether the health system immunised her and treated her diarrhoea, whether her household has a toilet and clean water, and whether her mother finished school and ate enough during pregnancy. Those levers sit with women and child development, health, drinking water and sanitation, rural development, education and the panchayats. Inter-sectoral convergence — statement 1 — is the instrument that makes those departments plan and report against a common nutrition target instead of each counting its own outputs. Statement 2 describes the other half. The old system knew a village's nutrition status months late, through paper registers passed up a chain; the Abhiyaan replaced that with a phone in the anganwadi worker's hand, so that a child's weight and height are entered at the point of measurement and a growth faltering shows up on a dashboard the same day. That dashboard is public: the Ministry of Women and Child Development's own website sends visitors to the Poshan Tracker statistics page for the current numbers. Both statements are strategies of the Abhiyaan, so the code that accepts both is the answer.
- (a)1 only — Accepts convergence but rejects the technology. Real-time growth monitoring is the more visible of the two — the anganwadi worker's tablet and the Poshan Tracker dashboard exist precisely to carry it.
- (b)2 only — Accepts the technology but rejects convergence, which is the older and more central idea. Nutrition outcomes depend on water, sanitation, health and education as much as on food, and no single ministry holds all four.
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — Rejects both, which would leave the Abhiyaan with no method at all. Convergence and technology-led monitoring are the two things it is most often described by.
POSHAN Abhiyaan, also called the National Nutrition Mission, is the Government of India's flagship programme against stunting, undernutrition, anaemia and low birth weight among children, adolescent girls and pregnant and lactating women. It does not create a new delivery network of its own; it works through the anganwadi centres of the Integrated Child Development Services, adding to them a convergence mandate, digital growth monitoring, capacity building for frontline workers and a community-mobilisation push known as the Jan Andolan.
A both-statements item like this is usually decided by asking whether either statement contains anything the scheme would actually deny — and neither does here. The reasoning that helps outside the exam is to see why convergence was the harder of the two to achieve. Departments are funded and judged on their own outputs, so a health worker has no incentive to chase a nutrition indicator that a colleague in another department will be credited for. Two anchors are checkable today: the Ministry of Women and Child Development's site routes its nutrition statistics through the Poshan Tracker, the ICT platform that made real-time monitoring possible, and the scheme itself now runs as Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0, which merged POSHAN Abhiyaan with the anganwadi services and the scheme for adolescent girls from 2021-22. The Abhiyaan is generally dated to a launch on 8 March 2018 at Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan; the ministry's own scheme page would not open for checking while this card was written, so treat that date as the commonly recorded one rather than as verified here.
- POSHAN Abhiyaan is the National Nutrition Mission, run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development through the anganwadi network of the Integrated Child Development Services.
- Its targets are framed as annual percentage reductions in stunting, undernutrition, anaemia and low birth weight rather than as a single headline number.
- Real-time growth monitoring runs on a digital platform — first the ICDS Common Application Software, now the Poshan Tracker, to which the ministry's own website directs visitors for statistics.
- Since 2021-22 the programme has been folded into Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0, alongside anganwadi services and the scheme for adolescent girls.
- Its community-mobilisation arm is called the Jan Andolan, and September is observed as Poshan Maah.
- Treating POSHAN Abhiyaan as a food-supply scheme; the supplementary nutrition comes from the anganwadi services, while the Abhiyaan is a convergence and monitoring layer on top.
- Confusing the National Nutrition Mission with the National Nutrition Policy of 1993 or with PM POSHAN, which is the renamed mid-day meal scheme.
- Assuming a scheme's ICT component is only for fund transfer; here it is used for measuring children.
Usually as a statements item on the scheme's strategy or targets, or as a name-matching item that sets POSHAN Abhiyaan against PM POSHAN and the older nutrition programmes.
Which of the following are the objectives of 'National Nutrition Mission'? 1. To create awareness relating to malnutrition among pregnant women and lactating mothers. 2. To reduce the incidence of anaemia among young children, adolescent girls and women. 3. To promote the consumption of millets, coarse cereals and unpolished rice. 4. To promote the consumption of poultry eggs. Select the correct answer using the code given below.
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 1, 2 and 3 only
- (c) 1, 2 and 4 only
- (d) 3 and 4 only
Answer(a) 1 and 2 only
The same scheme under its other name, asked on objectives instead of strategy. Awareness among pregnant and lactating women and the reduction of anaemia are on the list; particular food items are not, because the mission works on delivery and monitoring rather than on prescribing a menu.
CDS_GK_2022_II_Q202022Kwashiorkor, a form of malnutrition, is caused by the deficiency of
- (a) Minerals
- (b) Vitamins
- (c) Fats
- (d) Proteins
Answer(d) Proteins
The clinical end of the same subject. The CDS papers ask nutrition from two directions — the deficiency disease itself, and the programme built to prevent it — and a candidate is expected to hold both.
- practice — not a real PYQ
PM POSHAN, sometimes seen in the news, is the renamed version of which one of the following?
- (a)The Mid-Day Meal Scheme
- (b)The Integrated Child Development Services
- (c)The National Food Security Act entitlements
- (d)The Public Distribution System
Answer(a) The Mid-Day Meal Scheme — renamed PM POSHAN, or Poshan Shakti Nirman, in 2021 and extended to pre-primary children. It is distinct from POSHAN Abhiyaan.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The anganwadi centres through which POSHAN Abhiyaan is delivered belong to which one of the following programmes?
- (a)National Health Mission
- (b)Integrated Child Development Services
- (c)Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
- (d)National Rural Livelihood Mission
Answer(b) Integrated Child Development Services — the anganwadi is the ICDS delivery point, and POSHAN Abhiyaan adds convergence and digital monitoring to that existing network.