Malnutrition: Government Policies and Schemes

This paper attempts to review of government policies and schemes aimed at ensuring improving nutritional status of children and eradication of malnutrition in India and Maharashtra. Successive five year plans laid down the programmes and strategies for achieving this goal. As a stated in the X plan at the time of independence the country faced two major nutritional problems. One was the threat of famine and the resultant acute starvation due to low agricultural production and lack of an appropriate food distribution system. The other was chronic deficiency due to low dietary intake and low purchasing power because of poverty, high prevalence of infections because of poor access to safe drinking water, sanitation and health care, poor utilization of available facilities due to low literacy and lack of awareness. For combating these problems multi- sectorial strategy was adopted to improve the nutritional status of the population along with emphasis on rapid economic growth, education and health has remained core area of planning.1 Five year plans has been implemented for developing various sector such as agricultural, industry, eradication of poverty, technological self-reliance, self- economy and sustainable development. Targeted health care programme has been providing to the targeted population like national rural health mission (NRHM), Janani Suraksha Yojana and Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS).