Assam | Reform in nutrition scheme for children, pregnant women & mothers

Guwahati, June 05 (NKTV): Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma took a comprehensive review of the Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP) being implemented by the Social Welfare Department with senior officials of the department at his office conference room at Janata Bhawan today.

The Chief Minister while underlining the importance of the scheme for nutritional support towards healthy growth of children upto the age of six and pregnant women as well as lactating mothers, stressed on overall reform in the implementation process to ensure that maximum benefits of the scheme reach to the beneficiaries.

Chief Minister Sarma asked the officials to revisit the process of implementation of the scheme and come up with a new guideline so that the beneficiaries get utmost nutritional support. He made several directions for making the scheme effective including measures for increasing the number of items provided to beneficiaries under the categories of Take Home Ration (THR) and Hot Cooked Meal (HCM).

Further, the Chief Minister instructed the officials to intensify monitoring of the implementation process to stop any malpractice and explore ways for taking the scheme closer to people by making them important stakeholders. He also suggested certain procedural relaxations for ensuring seamless implementation of the scheme.

Social Welfare Minister Ajanta Neog, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Samir Kumar Sinha, Principal Secretary to Social Welfare Department Mukesh Sahu, Director Social Welfare BK Modi and other senior officials were present in the meeting among others.