SUPOSHIT MAA

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Context: The Prime Minister of India has praised the Lok Sabha speaker to promote mother and child health under the ‘Suposhit Maa’ initiative.

Suposhit Maa Abhiyan

• In March 2020, the Lok Sabha Speaker launched the 'Suposhit Maa Abhiyan' intending to create a malnutrition-free India in Kota, Rajasthan.
  • The Union Women and Child Development Minister presided over the event.
• The Lok Sabha Speaker informed that under this Abhiyan, 1,000 women would be given food items for one month. At the same time, the health of the child, including medical examination, blood tests, medicines, and delivery, would be covered.
  • 1,000 kits of a 17 kg balanced diet were provided to 1,000 pregnant women in the first phase of the campaign.
• Under the programme, the identified women would be required to register on a website for adoption.
  • Only one pregnant woman would be adopted from a family.
• In May 2022, the Lok Sabha Speaker launched the 2nd phase of "Suposhit Maa Abhiyan" in Kota, Rajasthan.
  • Under the 2nd Phase, 3000 women were given nutrition kits for 9 months.

Other Important Scheme

Poshan Schemes

• POSHAN (Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition) Abhiyaan was launched by the Prime Minister of India in 2018 to improve nutritional outcomes for children under 6 years of age, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
  • Mission Poshan 2.0 (Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0) has been launched as an integrated nutrition support program to strengthen nutritional content, delivery and outcomes with a principle of expanding practices that facilitate health, wellness and immunity and malnutrition.
• The name of the Midday Meal Scheme was changed to PM-POSHAN (Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman) Scheme, in September 2021, by the Ministry of Education.
  • The Central Government also announced that an additional 24 lakh students receiving pre-primary education at government & government-aided schools would also be included under the scheme by 2022.
• The Midday Meal Scheme is a school meal programme in India designed to better the nutritional standing of school-age children nationwide, the Ministry of Education.
  • The programme supplies free lunches on working days for children in primary and upper primary classes in government, government-aided, local body, Education Guarantee Scheme, and alternate innovative education centres, Madarsa and Maqtabs supported under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and National Child Labour Project schools run by the ministry of labour.
  • Serving 120 million children in over 1.27 million schools and Education Guarantee Scheme centres, the Midday Meal Scheme is the largest of its kind in the world.

Pradhanmantri Matru Vandana Yojana

• The Prime Minister announced the scheme in 2016.
• Implementing body: Ministry of Women and Child Development
• Under the scheme, a woman gets Conditional government support of ₹5,000 in three instalments for the first living child.
• Beneficiaries - Women not working under Central or State governments or a Public Sector Undertaking and who don't receive any similar benefits under any law are eligible to get benefits under the Scheme.
• Beneficiaries get Monetary benefits in 3 instalments on fulfilling the respective conditions:
  • Early registration for pregnancy
  • Antenatal check-up and registration of the birth of the child
  • Completion of the first cycle of vaccination for the child.
• To get benefits under the scheme, the women must be 19 years of age or more at the time of pregnancy.
• Janani Suraksha Yojana which provides a monetary benefit of ₹1,000 for institutional births is linked with Pradhanmantri Matru Vandana Yojana. Thus a mother gets an average of ₹6,000 under maternity benefit programmes.
• The government provides monetary support as partial wage compensation so that she can get proper nutrition during her pregnancy.
• The monetary benefits are provided to pregnant women through direct benefit transfer (DBT) in their bank account directly.

https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1900943