Kashi kids in better health, shows nutrition survey

VARANASI: The percentage of malnourished children in Varanasi is only 7.3% as per a survey during recently held nutrition fortnight. The percentage of malnourished children nationally is 19.2% as per the National Family Health Survey-5.
This came to the fore in a survey of over 3.3 lakh children during the recently held Poshan Pakhwada (Nutritional Fortnight) in Varanasi. The programme aimed at creating awareness about nutrition among the general public.
To make the fortnight a success, a 15-member expert team of the central government reached the district on March 26. On March 27, the team provided a one-day training to the child development project officer, supervisor and block coordinator of the district as master trainers. The 80 master trainers gave training to 3,690 Anganwadi workers at block level on March 28 to measure height and weight of the children.
The Poshan Pakhwada was celebrated as Poshan Utsav and its details were uploaded on Poshan Tracker. In the survey, only 24,000 kids were found suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and moderate acute malnutrition (MAM).
According to officials, the health check-up of all SAM-MAM children will be done by chalking out a strategy for health management of those kids, who will be admitted to the Nutrition Rehabilitation Center, if necessary.
During the training, block-level officers were deployed as supervisors to ensure qualitative training. The 3914 Anganwadi centres of the district were divided into 132 sectors and 794 clusters. At each sector, block-level officers were appointed as sector in-charge and at cluster level, primary school headmasters were appointed as cluster in-charge. Under their supervision, weight and height of 3,29,844 children as against 3,31,282 registered children were recorded from March 29 to 31.
A total of 3,05,000 children were given healthy child certificates. Besides, three Anganwadi workers were given a cash reward of Rs 10,000 each and three assistants were given Rs 5,000 prize from each child development project for their excellent work during Poshan Pakhwada. A total of 27 Aanganwadi workers and 27 assistants were awarded in the district. Besides, 27 Buddy Mothers were also honored in the district.
Besides, scooter rallies were held at three places on April 1 to create awareness on nutrition among the general public, in which about 800 Anganwadi workers and teachers from government schools participated. Besides, mega nutrition fairs were organised at three places in the district, including Kashi Krishak Inter College Harahua, Shriyugal Bihari Inter College at Rameshwar and Jagatpur Inter College.