Ojan Utsav to monitor growth in children
BHUBANESWAR: To strengthen monitoring of existing interventions for making Odisha malnutrition free, the State government has decided to roll out Ojan Utsav under the Mission Poshan 2.0 this month.
As part of the Mission, the height and weight of children in the age group of 0 to 5 years will be measured twice in a year at over 72,000 Anganwadi centres (AWCs) across the State to track their growth indicators, said officials of Women and Child Development department.
This will help the department in validating the growth monitoring data collected by Anganwadi workers. Currently, under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), weight and height of children in the age group of 0 to 5 is done by anganwadi workers.
“Ojan Utsav has been devised by Odisha government under a region-specific innovative programme of Mission Poshan 2.0. In addition to the monthly monitoring of growth by Anganwadi workers, weight and height measurements of children will be taken by them under the direct supervision of ICDS officials twice a year. The data will be validated with the monthly reports of Anganwadi workers,” said an official. The first round of Ojan Utsav will be carried out in the last week of May.
According to the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-20), the nutritional status of children in Odisha has improved in comparison to NFHS-4 (2015-16).