Smriti Zubin Irani launches Bharatiya Poshan Krishi Kosh

On 18 Nov, Union Minister of Women and Child Development (WCD) and Textiles, Smriti Zubin Irani, along with Bill Gates, co-chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Bharatiya Poshan Krishi Kosh (BPKK) today in New Delhi. The BPKK is a repository of diverse crops across 128 agro-climatic zones for better nutritional outcomes. Its purpose is to reduce malnutrition through a multi-sectoral results-based framework, including agriculture, among women and children across the country. National Nutrition Mission in India has brought a new energy needed to eliminate the Malnutrition. On this occasion, eminent agricultural scientist and Father of Green Revolution in the country Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, through a video message, underscored the five-point action plan to make India nutrition secure. The five points include, ensuring calorie-rich diet to women and children, ensuring high protein diet, eradication of hidden hunger by deficiency of micro- nutrients, ensuring clean drinking water supply and spreading nutrition literacy across the country. Smiriti Irani said that in September this year POSHAN Maah was celebrated and in one month 36 million POSHAN related activities were held across the country. The Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana Scheme (PMMVY) has reached out to 10 million beneficiaries by compensating for wage losses and since 2013 maternal mortality rate has come down by 26.9%. The programme was attended by Minister of State for WCD, Debasree Chaudhuri along with senior officials of the Ministries of WCD, Agriculture, Human Resource Development, NITI Aayog, Prime Minister’s Office, UNICEF, World Bank and civil society members.