Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said here on Tuesday that eggs were expensive and there were cheaper sources of protein that could be used to feed children in government mid-day meal programmes.
Ms. Gandhi was responding to a question on Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s decision not to provide eggs as part of the mid-day meal programme in the State, at an event to launch a mobile phone-based mass education campaign on malnutrition among women and children on Tuesday. Children only needed about 4 to 6 per cent of protein intake in their daily diet and the benefits of including eggs in school noon meals were exaggerated.
The ‘Poshan’ campaign, she launched on Tuesday, enables anyone with a mobile phone and an Internet connection to access four video messages, which will educate viewers on the benefits of better nutrition for pregnant women, breastfeeding babies for the first six months and preventing early and child marriage.
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“The Ministry will mobilise workers across 24 lakh anganwadis in India to ensure that the campaign messages reach the intended audience,” Ms. Gandhi said. She said that there will be no cost incurred by the Ministry in the campaign, as Indian Academy of Paediatrics and Vodafone India had pitched in as partners to do the needful. “The videos have been produced by us,” the Minister said.
Free talktime
The initiative by IAP and Vodafone India, plans to incentivise the viewing of these videos by providing Vodafone customers free talktime worth Rs. 10. Further the viewing and downloading of these videos will be free of data charges. Vodafone India will also be sending out 300 million text messages to its subscribers to encourage them to view the campaign videos.
Responding to criticism that video messages broadcast on Internet, a medium inaccessible for most rural Indias, is unlikely to address malnutrition, Ms. Gandhi said that she was following on the footsteps of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had worked hard to bring about a perception and behaviour change with regards to toilet use and sanitation through the Swacch Bharat campaign. “Communication is essential to change mindsets, and by mobilising anganwadi workers we will ensure the message of tackling malnutrition will be disseminated to the target audience,” Ms. Gandhi said.
The Minister also summarised the achievements of some of the NDA government’s flagship programmes for women and children. “In all the 100 districts where the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao programme was in progress, the government has achieved 100 per cent institutional delivery,” the Minister said. She added that the implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, key to curbing sex determination of the foetus, had also improved in the districts where BBBP programme was launched.
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