Nutrition Division across Main Divisions of SPNIWCD:

In SPNIWCD, nutrition serves as a unifying theme that intersects with and impacts all four verticals of Early Childhood Development Care & Education, Child protection, Adolescent Mental Health, and Women Empowerment and Safety. Ensuring adequate nutrition is fundamental to promoting overall health, development and wellbeing in these areas.

The Nutrition Division deals with the Training, Research and Documentation on Poshan, Anganwadi Services Scheme, Health and Wellness of Women and Children, Food Safety Issue, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene etc. It also supports the implementation of the Saksham Anganwadi and Mission Poshan 2.0 and provide technical assistance on nutrition issues.

Some of the activities that Nutrition Division undertakes includes the following:

A) Policy Formulation and Implementation:

• In light of recent developments including closure of Food and Nutrition Board MWCD may like to revise the National Nutrition Policy 1993 and National Plan of Action for Nutrition.
• IMS Act and its coordinating actions: Implementation of the Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant Food (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1992 (41 of 1992). There were two committees under this Act, National Breastfeeding Committee as National Steering Committee on Breastfeeding and Infant & Young Child Feeding (IYCF) under the Chairpersonship of Secretary, MWCD and National Breastfeeding Coordination Committee under the Chairpersonship of Joint Secretary, Ministry of Women & Child Development.

B) Technical support, Capacity Building of relevant stakeholders to three key Missions of MWCD at SPNIWCD HQs and Five Regional Centres at Guwahati, Bengaluru, Indore, Lucknow and Mohali.  

Under restructuring of SPNIWCD, Nutrition Vertical has been created which runs across all the other four Main Verticals namely, ECDCE, Adolescents and Mental Health, Child Protection and Women Empowerment and Safety encompassing all the three Missions of the Ministry namely Saksham Anganwadi/Poshan2.0, Mission Shakti and Mission Vatsalya.

• Sakhsam Anganwadi Services Scheme and Poshan Abhiyan including PBPB
• Nutrition aspects related to Mission Vatsalya (The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 (JJ Act) sets minimum standards for the care of juveniles, including nutritional standards) and at SAA under CARA
• Schemes like Palna, PMMVY and BBBP under Mission Shakti
• Nutrition Activities under International Cooperation Vertical. 

C) Undertake National/International Researches on Nutrition including  analyzing the trends of nutrition status of the target groups based on Poshan Tracker data and providing inputs for policy level intervention and bridging the gap between the nutrition interventions, research, policy and implementation.

D) Imparting Nutrition and health education: Designing and rolling out nationwide nutrition campaigns, inputs in IEC material, and sensitization workshops for policy makers and implementers on the nutrition related issues. Creating/ developing regular regional diet charts for all categories of beneficiaries based on the nutrition norms. Coordinating with line Ministries and departments in designing the Nutrition Events providing technical support to the Poshan Abhiyaan and for Nutrition and Health education activities.

E) Development Documentation and Review of the Knowledge material and Sharing: Developing and reviewing knowledge material on nutrition in the form of Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) modules. The Nutrition Division documents best practices, case studies, and success stories from nutrition interventions across the country. Establish a centralized knowledge hub or resource center for sharing information, tools, and resources related to nutrition promotion. Bridge gaps in documentation by ensuring that lessons learned are systematically captured and disseminated to inform future programming and policy decisions.