New Delhi, June 13 (ANI): Minister for Women and Child Development Krishna Tirath has highlighted the contribution of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and the multi-sectoral programmes of the Government of India in fighting malnutrition in the country.
In a meeting with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelllius in Washington on Tuesday, Tirath shared her concerns over the challenge of combating malnutrition, particularly among children.
She described the problem as complex, multi-dimensional and inter-generational in nature.
Elaborating on the role played by ICDS in preventing child morbidity, mortality and malnutrition, Tirath highlighted the scheme's contribution in providing a holistic package of services namely supplementary nutrition, pre-school non-formal education, nutrition and health education, immunization, health check-up and referral services.
She highlighted the scheme's contribution in providing a holistic package of services namely supplementary nutrition, pre-school non-formal education, nutrition and health education, immunization, health check-up and referral services.
She said that ICDS has the potential to break the inter-generational cycle of under nutrition as well as address the multiple disadvantages faced by the mother and child. She informed that this programme is specifically designed to reach the disadvantaged and low-income groups in India with a huge outreach.
She also informed that her ministry was poised to further strengthen the programme with greater resource allocation and make it respond effectively to the challenges related with maternal and child health.
With regard to U.S.-India bilateral co-operation, Tirath also informed that she would soon be sending a delegation to get first hand knowledge of the functioning of the Head Start programme in the U.S.A., which was learnt to be a similar kind of community outreach programme for early childhood care.
Sebelllius revealed that the U.S. agriculture ministry was running a programme for nutrition support for pregnant and lactating mothers, which could also be looked into for cross country learning to strengthen the nutrition component of ICDS with a focus on pregnant and lactating mothers.
Tirath agreed to include this programme as part of learning under the India-U.S. women empowerment dialogue already in progress under the India-US strategic dialogue. (ANI)
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