The ninth edition of Rashtriya Poshan Maah (National Nutrition Month) will be launched on Wednesday at the Rudraksh International Cooperation and Convention Centre in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, with a focus on strengthening nutrition, health and caregiving practices among pregnant women, lactating mothers, children, adolescents and their families.
Observed every September, Poshan Maah seeks to mobilise communities and promote positive behavioural change around maternal nutrition, infant and young child feeding, growth monitoring and hygiene, while supporting broader efforts to improve nutrition outcomes across the country.
Last year’s campaign was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 17 from Dhar in Madhya Pradesh, along with the “Swasth Nari, Sashakt Parivar Abhiyaan (SNSPA)”.
This year’s campaign will focus on the role of Anganwadi centres, which form one of the world’s largest childcare networks and provide essential care and support to children, including those in remote communities.
The central theme of Poshan Maah 2026 is “Hamari Anganwadi Hamari Jimmedari”, calling for greater community ownership of Anganwadi centres and placing them at the centre of local action on nutrition, care and early childhood development.
The campaign will be anchored around five key priorities, including promoting dietary diversity with adequate protein, a variety of food groups and locally available foods. It will also focus on ensuring that beneficiaries receive fresh, diverse and nutritious hot-cooked meals under the Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP), while encouraging regular attendance at Anganwadi centres.
Another priority is strengthening community ownership and accountability through newly constituted Anganwadi Management Committees and the display of SNP Menu Boards.
The campaign will also highlight cognitive development and adequate nutrition as fundamental pillars of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), emphasising the close link between nutrition and a child’s ability to learn and develop.
Poshan Maah 2026 will also mark 10 years of the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), the government’s flagship maternity benefit programme. The campaign will highlight the scheme’s role in supporting maternal nutrition, encouraging health-seeking behaviour and providing income support during pregnancy.
It will also underline the importance of maternal nutrition and care during the first 1,000 days of life for healthy growth, cognitive development and long-term well-being.
The Poshan Tracker, launched on March 1, 2021, serves as the primary governance and monitoring platform for Anganwadi Services, enabling near real-time data collection on infrastructure and service delivery.
The system currently covers pregnant women, lactating mothers, children up to six years of age and adolescent girls.
As of July 31, the country’s nutrition infrastructure comprised nearly 13.99 lakh Anganwadi centres staffed by around 13.30 lakh workers, reaching approximately 8.94 crore beneficiaries.
Children remain the largest beneficiary group, with more than 7.2 crore children aged between six months and six years covered under the system. Pregnant women and lactating mothers together account for nearly 1.1 crore beneficiaries.
Malnutrition remains a major public health challenge in India, affecting the health, growth, learning and productivity of women and children.
To address the issue through a coordinated approach, the government launched POSHAN Abhiyaan in March 2018 as a multi-ministerial convergence mission aimed at placing nutrition at the centre of the country’s development agenda.
In the Union Budget 2021-22, various nutrition-related interventions were consolidated under Mission Poshan 2.0, India’s unified National Nutrition Mission anchored by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
The framework brings together POSHAN Abhiyaan, with its focus on technology-enabled monitoring, Jan Andolan and behavioural change, along with Anganwadi Services and the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), which provide supplementary nutrition, hot-cooked meals and early childhood care.
The Scheme for Adolescent Girls also provides nutritional support to eligible out-of-school adolescent girls.
(IANS Inputs)
