The Mission POSHAN 2.0 likely to be sent for the Union Cabinet approval soon provides for testing of meals and food packets distributed at anganwadis for nutritional standards and quality by FSSAI labs.
According to a government official in the know, the government proposes to also rope in NABL laboratories notified by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) as well as use rapid food testing kits approved by the regulator. The latter will mitigate the need for samples to be sent to the laboratories for testing.
The Ministry of Women and Child Development, which is the nodal Ministry for implementing the Mission POSHAN, will also partner with the Panchayati Raj Ministry so that FSSAI and the National Institute of Nutrition can train Panchayati Raj functionaries at village level and anganwadi workers in maintaining and monitoring quality of take-home ration and supplementary nutrition distributed at anganwadis.
The Mission POSHAN 2.0 was first announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech last month, but the details are still be finalised. Since 2017, the government has been implementing POSHAN Abhiyan or Nutrition Mission with specific targets for improving various malnutrition indicators by 2022.
