Indus Valley Times

By A K Sahoo

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 18: Bansidhar & Ila Panda Foundation (BIPF) held its 10th edition of Ideate in partnership with FICCI-Aditya Birla CSR Centre for Excellence and Impact4Nutrition as knowledge partner on November 17, 2021 over virtual platform, made live from New Delhi. The subject of deliberation was “NUTRITION REIMAGINED – GOING THE LOCAL WAY”. 

Mr Pramod Kumar Merkap (IFS. Retd) Chairperson, Odisha State Food Commission, joined the deliberation as Key Note Speaker. Distinguished speakers on Ideate 2021 were Ms Swarnima Shukla – Joint Director, Women and Child Development, Madhya Pradesh, Dr Supreet Kaur, Senior Policy Advisor, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN),and Dr. Devika Gali, Chief Manager, Public Health Nutrition, Piramal Swathya.

 The session was moderated by Mr Saurav Bhattacharjee – Nutrition Specialist, UNICEF Odisha.

In her inaugural speech Ms. Shaifalika Panda, CEO, BIPF opined that under-nutrition / malnutrition has been a long existing challenge, which is having an adverse impact on inter-generational health, education and employment. She also stated that Odisha is the first state to announce a separate nutrition budget.

Mr Pramod Kumar Merkap (IFS. Retd) Chairperson, Odisha State Food Commissiontalking on the occasion emphasized on the Mandate of Food Commission and its role in creating a conducive environment for balanced nutrition. He quoted that “Hunger is no longer an issue of charity but issue of justice. He had highlighted various good practices adopted by both Central & State Govt. in addressing the issue of Malnutrition.He had appreciated the thought process behind the webinar and urged all the stakeholders to work unitedly and make issue of Nutrtion as “Jan Andolan” 

Ms Swarnima Shukla – Joint Director, Women and Child Development, Govt. Of Madhya Pradeshtalked about innovation approach of the Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition programme (IMM) of the state government and how the programme aims at helping Severely Acute Malnourished (SAM) & Medium Acute Malnourished (MAM) children with robust monitoring mechanism. She has touched on innovative approaches on MP including Poshan Sarkar, PoshanVatika.

Malnutrition needs a multi-pronged and a multi sectoral approach; all stakeholders should be involved”, say MsSwarnima Shukla, and added lack of awareness on part of the community is a concern, and developing community ownership is an area where private partners could step-in.

Dr Supreet Kaur, Senior Policy Advisor, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)spoke on Public private partnerships should have an equity provision, which actually ensures that the quality of services to be provided are equally distributed across all the society.She has touched upon essential elements of Dietary Diversification, nutrition education counselling and comprehensive framework for nutrition.

Dr. Devika Gali, Chief Manager, Public Health Nutrition, Piramal Swathyasaid CSR could play a very extensive role in nutrition sensitive interventions. She added, “Community inclusive nutrition programming should be a primordial wherein community essentially becomes part of planning & prioritizing”.She said community-based model like SHG Based Nutrition Entrepreneurship & community-based nutrition hub are some of the initiatives taken up as best practice by Piramal Swasthya.

Ms.Shaifalika Panda, CEO, Bansidhar & Ila Panda Foundation said Private players could do some research and investment to develop a local based food model. Private sector also has access to technology, and this is the right time to go in for a technology integrated Nutri education at the community level.