The National Nutrition Mission, with all its hype, is confined very much to fixing targets, and its focus does not seem to consist in addressing the causes for the high prevalence of malnutrition, stunting or wasting among children. By T.K. RAJALAKSHMI ON March 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the National Nutrition Mission (NNM) and announced the pan India expansion of the Beti Padhao Beti Bachao (BPBB) scheme from Jhunjhunu district in Rajasthan, where Assembly elections will be held this year. While the NNM was approved by the Union Cabinet in December 2017, with a three-year budget of Rs.9,046.17 crore to be shared in a 60:40 ratio between the Centre and the States, the BPBB scheme was launched in January 2015. Both schemes were aimed at the girl child, women and children in general. The NNM, with all its hype, is confined very much to fixing targets, “intense” monitoring and guiding nutrition-related interventions across Ministries. Its focus does not seem to consist in addressing the causes for the high prevalence of malnutrition, stunting or wasting among children in a district like Jhunjhunu, where it was launched from. It is, rather, confined to mapping various existing schemes; introducing convergence mechanisms (a Convergence Action Plan, to be more precise incentivising States and Union Territories to meet targets; incentivising Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme workers to use IT-based tools; measuring the height of children at ICDS centres; conducting social audits; and setting up nutrition resource centres. Interestingly, the NNM appears to have been conceived very much on the line of the National Health Protection Scheme targeted at a section of the population and announced in the Union Budget without any specific idea of the contours of the scheme itself. The NNM outlines the targets of reducing stunting, undernutrition, anaemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls) and correcting low birth weight. That apart, it has little to offer except an emphasis on the need for a “synergy” among various schemes as levels of malnutrition remain high despite a number of schemes for pregnant women, children and lactating mothers. (This admission comes in a government release.) Targeted responses seldom work, if the example of the targeted public distribution system is anything to go by. The NNM then only seeks to replicate what is already being mapped by various government bodies, including the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB), which maps nutritional levels in the various population segments.