Jaipur: Stage is all set for launch of national nutrition mission (NNM) in the state. It will come as a hope for under-5 children of a state having 39 per cent of stunted growth, 23 per cent wasted growth and 9 per cent severely wasted growth (figures from National Family Health Survey -4, 2015-16). Not only under-5 children, NNM will also address nutrition-related problems of non-pregnant women and pregnant women separately. NFHS-4 shows that 47 per cent non-pregnant women in the age group of 15-49 years are anaemic (having haemoglobin less than12.0 g/dl) and almost equal percentage of pregnant women in the age group of 15-49 years are anaemic (<11.0 g/dl). Before NNM is formally launched in the state, a convergent state plan of action will be developed during a state consultation which will be held in Jaipur on Monday as provisioned in the direction for NNM by Niti Aayog. The consultation will discuss the challenges and identify effective strategies to address under-nutrition, said an official of department of women and child development. In the consultation, chief secretary NC Goyal, Dr Vinod Paul, member Niti Aayog and chairman, National Technical Board on Nutrition, Niti Aayog, Dr MK Bhan, member, National Technical Board on Nutrition, Isabelle Bardem – chief , Unicef office for Rajasthan, Arjan De Wagt – chief of nutrition, Unicef India country office, Adesh Chaturvedi, senior technical consultant, World Bank along with officials from department of women and child development, state secretaries of various relevant departments and their district representatives with district collectors and experts on nutrition. According to the officials, the consultation will discuss how to implement NNM in the state. “The consultation emphasised the need for highest level of convergence in the state with the purpose to take it further down to subsequent 24 identified districts,” said WCD officials. They added that subsequently at the districts too, district action plans will be developed to facilitate needs based planning for effective implementation of programmes under the nutrition mission. This concerted convergence and collaboration is expected to accelerate the efforts towards significantly bringing down the levels of under nutrition and as the Nutrition Mission states, ‘Mission aims to bring down stunting of the children in the age group of 0-6 years from 38% to 25% at national level by the year 2022’ .