In Haryana’s Hisar district, it’s a common sight these days to see Additional Deputy Commissioner Swapnil Ravindra Patil and teams of Anganwadi workers going door to door to counsel young mothers about the need to feed nutritious diet to their children, so that they are not malnourished.
Indian Masterminds interacted with the 2017-batch IAS officer to know more about this unique initiative to fight malnourishment.
TARGET 395 TO 0
Mr. Patil informed that there are 395 children in Hisar district who are suffering from malnutrition. Some of these children fall in the category of ‘Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and some in the category of ‘moderate acute malnutrition’ (MAM). “Our entire focus is on the health of these children. We plan to send our supervisor door to door to counsel mothers on how to fight malnutrition in children with nutritious food.”
Although there are government schemes to provide nutritious food to the women and children of rural areas through Anganwadi centres, the office feels this is not enough. “Our aim is to counsel them on what to eat to fight malnutrition for a better effect so that we win this battle soon. We have bajra (Millet) foods in abundance and bajra is an effective weapon against malnutrition. So, we are telling them to eat things made from Bajra.”
LEADING FROM THE FRONT
Mr. Patil himself is doing counselling in the field,thereby encouraging everyone. He says, “I am meeting the mothers myself, because when the senior officials themselves reach the village and encourage them, they feel that the government is making extra efforts and they should also contribute. At the same time, children coming to Anganwadi are also being fed separately with nutritious food. We are telling them about easy-to-make nutritious food like peanut butter. We are hopeful that we will soon get these children out of malnutrition.”
TIE UP WITH AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY
The officer also plans to tie up with Haryana Agricultural University in Hisar. It houses the Centre of Excellence Bajra Product Department. He hopes to gather information from this department about nutritious food. “After working closely with the department, we can chalk out a more effective nutrition plan. We can provide Bajra Biscuit, Bajra Cake etc. to the children. This is expected to increase the nutritional level of the children. Also, very often, the food that children get are eaten by others in the family. Therefore, emphasis is also being laid on counselling that the food meant for children should be eaten only by them.”
FAMILY PLANNING IMPORTANT
The special feature of this initiative is that many objectives are being taken up under one umbrella. Family planning is one of them. Mr. Patil says, “There are girls who get married at a young age and have three or four children.In such cases, the children are usually victims of malnutrition. Hence, we are counselling young mothers about the need for family planning. When a girl marries at a young age, her body is not well prepared for motherhood and the risk of children becoming malnourished increases. With proper counselling, we hope to educate people about the ills of marrying off girls at a very young age, the need for family planning, and the importance of feeding proper diet to children.”
