Governance
Take-Home Ration
- 04 Jul 2022
- 5 min read
For Prelims: NITI Aayog, World Food Programme, Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Take Home Ration (THR)
For Mains: Take Home Ration Scheme, Its Challenges and What Could be the Way Forward.
Why in News?
Recently, a report titled-Take Home Ration-Good Practices throughout the State/Union Territories was released by NITI Aayog and the World Food Program.
What is World Food Program?
- It is the largest humanitarian organisation in the world, saving lives in times of need and utilising food aid to help people recover from war, natural disasters, and the effects of climate change create a road to peace, stability, and prosperity.
- The WFP was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020.
- It was founded in 1961 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) with its headquarters in Rome, Italy.
- It is also a member of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG), a coalition of UN agencies and organisations aimed at fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
What are the Key Highlights of the Report?
- The report presents a set of good and innovative practices adopted in the implementation of the Take Home Ration value chain by the States and UTs.
- The government adopted innovative models to reach remote areas.
- It appreciated the production, formulation, delivery, labelling, packaging, supervision, quality control, and changes in social and behavioural norms adopted by the Government by JAN BHAGIDARI, and sourcing local networks of Anganwadi’s, etc.
What is Take Home Ration?
- The government of India provides Take Home Ration under the Supplementary Nutrition component of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) to fill the gap in nutrition among children as well as Pregnant and Lactating Women (PLW).
- It offers fortified rations for use at home, provided in two ways:
- Take-Home Rations and Hot-Cooked Meals at Anganwadi Centers.
- It's given as raw ingredients or in packets that have already been cooked.
What are the Challenges?
- Leakages in Delivery Mechanism:
- Due to faulty practices and corruption in the delivery system, the whole scenario is very complex, and siphoning off rations to the black market is easy.
- Poor Quality:
- Often the goods are of poor quality due to the negligence of the procuring department.
- Lack of warehouse and cold storage often led to wastage of food grains.
- Lack of Transparency:
- The whole delivery mechanism lacks transparency as it's almost unable to track the logistics and various other mechanisms involved to keep a check on them.
- Poor Implementation:
- The use of traditional methods to procure, sort, and deliver the product keeps the system inefficient, which leads to very poor implementation in the delivery of food grains.
What are the Other Similar Government Schemes?
- National Health Mission (NHM):
- Launched in 2013, it subsumed the National Rural Health Mission and the National Urban Health Mission.
- It is being implemented by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.
- PM-POSHAN:
- In September 2021, the Union Cabinet approved the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman or PM-POSHAN for providing one hot cooked meal in Government and Government-aided schools with the financial outlay of Rs 1.31 trillion.
- The scheme replaced the national programme for mid-day meal in schools or Mid-day Meal Scheme.
- National Nutrition Strategy:
- The Strategy aims to reduce all forms of undernutrition by 2030, with a focus on the most vulnerable and critical age groups.
Way forward
- The THR programme needs to be strengthened more in order to meet the nutritional goals in a timely manner.
- Need to learn the best practices and analyses of novel THR programmes from various States and Union Territories.
- Need for innovation in the field of THR in terms of production, distribution, quality control, monitoring, and use of technology.
