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| India to take the lead in popularizing 'Millets' |
India to take the lead in popularizing 'Millets' in the world
Earlier, grandmother or grandmother used to praise Millets, but then Millets gradually disappeared from our life. The surprising thing is that now the world has started following the path of our grandmothers. Yes, during the Kovid period, the whole world came to know about the nutritional treasure of Millets and adopted it. We have also learned about the preventive health care benefits of millets.
UN's big decision on PM Modi's initiative
The reality is that millets were once a part of our own food, but over time they disappeared from our plates, but now once again on the initiative of PM Modi to promote millets, the UN has 2023 has been declared as 'International Year of Millets'. India will lead it. Not only this, the farmers of the country are going to get a lot of benefits from this.
The world understood the importance of coarse grains
Experts are of the opinion that the world has understood the importance of coarse grains in terms of health during Kovid, so it is considered more beneficial for farmers to grow it. This grain also grows in less water and less fertile land and the price is also higher than wheat.
2018 coarse grain year
Its importance can be understood in such a way that the Central Government, understanding the importance of millet crops, celebrated 2018 as the Year of Coarse Cereals, so that the production of coarse cereals could be encouraged. Taking this initiative forward, the Government of India had led a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly to declare 2023 as 'International Millet Day' which has been accepted by the UN.
Time to Adopt Millets
That is, now the time has come to replenish this treasure of Millets. That is, the food that we had left or forgotten, we have to adopt it again. In millets, we have to make many grains like barley, jowar, bajra, ragi, maduva, sawan, kodon, kutki, kangni, chena again a part of our diet in our life. During this, the central government has taken several steps to promote coarse cereals. These include setting up of Centers of Excellence, inclusion of nutritious cereals in national food security and establishment of Millet Missions in several states. Despite this, many challenges remain in the production, distribution and consumer adoption of coarse cereals.
Useful in children and pregnancy
On the other hand, within the distribution system, the focus of food distribution programs has shifted from the 'calorie principle' to providing a more diverse food package, including coarse cereals, to improve the nutritional status of school-going children and reproductively capable women. Work is being done to bring about improvements.
Central government's focus on 'coarse grains'
NITI Aayog and the World Food Program intend to address these challenges in a systematic and effective manner. For this, NITI Aayog signed a Declaration of Intent with the United Nations World Food Program on '20 December 2021'. The partnership will focus on mainstreaming coarse cereals and with 2023 being the International Year of Millets, India will be supported to lead the world in knowledge exchange. In addition, the partnership aims to create sustainable livelihood opportunities for smallholder farmers, adapt to climate change efficiencies and transform the food system.
The future of farmers will also improve
It is clear from all these efforts that the central government is working with great intensity in this direction and is handling the responsibility of making the life of the farmer of the country happy as well as securing and protecting the future of the country. The Declaration of Intent seeks to focus on strategic and technical cooperation between NITI Aayog and the World Food Program to strengthen climate resilient agriculture for enhanced food and nutritional security in India. In such a situation, the central government has called upon all the farmers of the country to grow more and more millets and the food processing industry of the country should prepare attractive products from them. It has a high demand in the global market.
India will be malnutrition free
Only then 'Malnutrition Free India' will be built. However, the central government has already been conscious about removing malnutrition. For this, the central government is also running various schemes. The 'National Nutrition Mission' is one of these.
About National Nutrition Mission:
POSHAN Abhiyaan is being run by the Government of India in a phased manner by adopting a life cycle approach to eradicate malnutrition. Under this, an ambitious “National Nutrition Mission” has been formed by the Government of India to improve the health and nutritional status of children from 0 to 06 years and pregnant and lactating mothers in a phased manner. Goals have been set to do so.
Objectives and Goals:
1. To prevent stunting in 0-6 year olds and reduce it by 6% overall, 2% per annum.
2. Prevention of undernutrition of children of 0 to 6 years and to reduce it by 6% in total, at the rate of 2% per annum.
3. To reduce the prevalence of anemia in children aged 6 to 59 months by an overall rate of 9 percent, 3% per year.
4. Anemia in adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating mothers of 15 to 49 years To reduce the spread of the virus at the rate of 3% per annum to 9 percent overall.
5. To reduce the number of children born with low birth weight by 6 percent, 2% per annum.
Major Initiatives of the Central Government
– As part of financial support during COVID-19, the Government of India has implemented additional nationwide schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) and Aatmanirbhar Bharat Yojana (ANBS).
– Under PMGKAY, the Government of India has covered people covered under the National Food Security Act (Antyodaya Anna Yojana and Priority Families) for the period April to November 2020 and then under Direct Benefit Transfer for the period from May to November 2021. Free allocation of food grains at the rate of 5 kg per month per person to about 80 crore (800 million) beneficiaries of 36 states and union territories including
During the year 2O2O, 3.22 crore (32.2 million) metric tonnes of food grains and during the year 2021, around 3.28 crore (32.8 million) metric tonnes of food grains were allocated free of cost to around 80 crore (800 million) NFSA beneficiaries under PMGKAY scheme Is)
Apart from food grains, 1 kg pulses per family per month has been provided free of cost to all beneficiaries covering 19.4 crore (194 million) families under NFSA for the period April to November 2020.
Under ANBS, the government has allocated about 8 lakh (800 thousand) metric tonnes of additional free food grains to all states and union territories for migrants and stranded migrants who are neither under NFSA nor state scheme PDS cards. In addition to free foodgrains for the period of May and June 2020 to such people at 5 kg per person per month, about 0.27 lakh (27 thousand) metric tonnes of whole grains under ANBS for this period Chana was allotted.
The allocation of free food grains, pulses and whole gram under PMGKAY and ANBS was in addition to the normal allocation made under NFSA. Apart from PMGKAY and ANBS, the Government of India has allocated food grains under Open Market Sale Scheme (Domestic) for all the beneficiaries who have been issued ration cards by the State Governments under their own schemes but under NFSA for three months. not included under.
In the months from April to June 2020, wheat at Rs 21 per kg and rice at Rs 22 per kg were provided. There was no maximum limit on the allocation of food grains. Later this scheme was extended beyond May 2021.
– To compensate for the loss incurred during the disruption in employment of those earning less than Rs 15,000/- per month in organized sector businesses with less than 100 workers, the government has decided to pay 24 per cent of their monthly wages for three months, April to June 2020. paid in their PF accounts.
MGNREGA wages increased by Rs 20 with effect from 1 April 2020 to provide an additional Rs 2,000 benefit to a worker annually to benefit about 13.62 crore (136.2 million) families.
The first installment of Rs 2,000 due in 2020-21 was paid in advance and was paid under PM Kisan Yojana in April 2020 itself. This benefited 8.7 crore (87 million) farmers.
A total of 20.4 crore (204 million) women account holders of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana were given ex-gratia amount of Rs 500 per month for three months, from April to June 2020.
Additional free lending limit raised from Rs 10 to 20 lakh (Rs 1 million to Rs 2 million) for women organized through 63 lakh (6.3 million) self-help groups (SHGs) supporting 6.85 crore (68.5 million) households has been done.
– The government provided Rs 1,000 per month from April to June 2020 to 3 crore (30 million) old widows and differently-abled people who are facing a critical situation to deal with the hardships of the economic disruption caused by COVID-19 .
India's position on child mortality has improved in 2021 as compared to 2020. The situation on two indices, i.e. child wasting and child stunting, remained unchanged in 2021 as compared to 2020.