To tackle malnutrition in Maharashtra, nutrition garden programme extended to 8 more districts

Mumbai, March 30: Children should be taken good care of as they are the future pillars of strong India. It is necessary that children are given proper nutrition and care in order to sustain their good health. To reduce the incidence of malnutrition among children in Maharashtra, the state's women and child development department has set to develop 25,000 kitchen gardens and produce fruits and vegetables on a small scale for more than two lakh children in anganwadis across the state.

To tackle the malaise of malnutrition among the children in Maharashtra, a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between the Rajmata Jijau Mother-Child Health Nutrition Mission (RJMCHNM), Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD) and Reliance Foundation (RF).

 

This MoU was earlier signed in 2015, and was renewed on Thursday in the presence of Minister for Rural Development, Pankaja Munde and Jagannatha Kumar, CEO, Reliance Foundation.

 

RNGs are scientifically developed, low cost, organic kitchen gardens that use a multi-tier cropping system to accommodate a variety of fruits and vegetables. This helps improve health and nutritional parameters among farmer families across villages in India.

During the first phase of the collaboration, Reliance Nutrition Gardens (RNGs) were established and promoted in eight districts of Maharashtra, namely Pune, Thane, Palghar, Yavatmal, Jalgaon, Parbhani, Osmanabad and Wardha.

 

While addressing the occasion, Pankaja Munde said, "The encouraging results of the first phase have motivated the state government to expand the programme in eight new districts with Reliance Foundation as our knowledge partner. We want to ensure that every child in anganwadis gets access to fresh fruits and vegetables across the state."

More than one lakh children are provided with fresh fruits and vegetables through 7,300 nutrition gardens set up in anganwadi. RF has capacitated more than 450 master trainers for nutrition gardens to help build and sustain this effort.