The District Collector of Asifabad district in Telangana, IAS officer Rahul Raj, was recently honored with the prestigious Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in public administration under the Poshan Abhiyan category. He received this award for his successful efforts to provide nutrition to children, pregnant women, and lactating mothers.
In an exclusive conversation with Indian Masterminds, Mr. Raj talked about the achievement that got him this award.
IMPLEMENTATION OF PROJECT
The successful project, sanctioned by Niti Aayog, had an intent to promote millet cultivation to eradicate malnutrition. The pilot project was supposed to happen in only 4 out of the 15 mandals in the district with a minimum target audience.
“We found out that a large number of people, especially women and children, were malnourished which was also leading to numerous maternal and infant deaths. Therefore, we came to a decision to implement the program in the entire district instead of just 4 mandals,” Mr. Raj said.
RECIPE TRAININGS
The officer selected 15 Anganwadi centers and began the pilot project, in which millets were introduced in the meals with a target audience of entire households. He conducted large numbers of awareness sessions where he involved local representatives, sarpanches, ward members, MLAs, etc.
“For millet consumption, we conducted cooking recipe trainings wherein different recipes were taught that can be made using millets. We did this because most of the people don’t know how to cook millets,” he told Indian Masterminds.
Introducing millets was one part of the program, teaching them how to cook it was another part, and motivating them to cook and consume it, was the third part.
The project carried on for an entire month in the 15 Anganwadi centers. It was a huge success, as 80% of the beneficiaries began consuming millets outside their regular Anganwadi meal.
EXPANDING THE HORIZON
The officer’s idea was not to streamline the meals in just the Anganwadi centers, because that alone couldn’t have addressed the problem. The problem was not the Anganwadi meal, but the other two meals that the people consumed at home.
“At home, they were consuming nutrition deficit meals with a lack of fruits, vegetables, millets, or any rich nutritional content food. We focused on this aspect and trained 15 Anganwadi teachers to become master trainers, who in turn trained 75 more Anganwadi teachers by the next month,” Mr. Raj said.
He adopted the same strategy and included all community leaders, tribal leaders, intermediaries, local panchayats, sarpanch secretaries, ward staff, MLAs, etc. to spread awareness and repeated the entire process once again.
“We received similar success in the next month also and decided to expand the project month by month. By the 3rd and 4th month, 225 and 450 centers were covered respectively. By the 5th month, we could cover all the 973 Anganwadi centers in Asifabad,” he told Indian Masterminds.
MISSION SAMPOORN SHOPS
Since the officer was motivating the people to consume more millets per day, it was also necessary to make it adequately available to them. To do so, he started transporting millets from cities to the villages in the district, but due to transport costs, the cost of millets also went up.
“Our concept was not to provide free millets to them. We wanted them to purchase it and consume it, but with increased prices, it became a challenge. To avoid this, we opened Mission Sampoorn shops in each of the 973 villages which were run by SHG women,” he said.
The shops are tied up with every Anganwadi center and encourages people to grow millets in their respective village themselves. Then the SHG women procure the millets produced in the village, process them through DLR machines, package, brand, and then sell them to the local villagers at cheaper rates.
“Through this, we have developed a Village Circular Economic Model under which not only millets but now even vegetables are grown at a large extent since solely millets can’t eradicate malnutrition,” he said.
NUTRI-GARDENS
Mr. Raj has also developed Nutri-gardens in all Anganwadi schools, normal schools, and other institutions wherever land was available in the district, to grow vegetables which are later procured and sold by the SHG women.
“It brings awareness to the people about the importance of nutrition, and secondly, the produce from the gardens can be used in the Anganwadis and for distribution among people of the villages,” he said.
He is also encouraging people to go for backyard Nutri-gardens and grow their own vegetables for consumption. In this way, Mr. Raj ensured that 80% of the beneficiaries have started consuming nutrition-rich diets in their meals through the promotion of millets and vegetables within six months of the project.
As a result of the project, maternal mortality and infant mortality have decreased and the number of malnourished children in the district came down from 1300 to 300 and is expected to reach 0 within the next two months.
