malnutrition: Zilla Parishad to replicate experiment

Dr Sanjeev Kumar,Zilla Parishad CEO,said,”we had tried an initial experiment at Purandar tehsil where 15 centres were set up and 152 children were admitted for a month. At least 101 children showed improvement.”

There are 4,342 anganwadis in the Pune rural area and a total of 3.24 lakh children in the age group 0-6 years were weighed. A total of 2.27 lakh children were in the general category while 84,574 children and 12,475 children respectively belonged to the Grade I and Grade II categories of moderately malnourished children. There were 78 acutely malnourished children in Grade III and three severely malnourished children in the district.

The Village Child Development Centre now envisages a special programme for alleviating the problem of malnutrition,says Suvarna Kurle,coordinator of the programme.

Each centre will have 10-12 children in the programme for a month where a special meal enriched with proteins will be given. According to the new criteria for malnutrition among children,the weight of the child will be measured according to his/her height.

According to Kumar,the programme has now been replicated in tehsils including Baramati,Khed,Junnar,Ambegaon,Shirur,Daund,Indapur,Haveli,Maval,Bhor,Velha and Mulshi.

Most of the funds for the programme have been sought from the village development committee of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM),patient welfare committee and from community members.