Bantwal: With great ambition of curbing malnutrition among little children, the government started providing a healthy porridge mix to Anganwadi centres. However, this nutrition food called Nutrimix, which was supposed to tackle the nutritional deficiencies in pre-school children (till age of three) has become a fodder for cattle!
The mixture of locally available tur dal, green gram, groundnut, jaggery, rice, wheat, Bengal gram and sugar is distributed over a 6 month period to all the anganwadis to help children suffering from malnutrition. The powder is mixed with water and served to children in the Anganwadi centre and good portion is handed over to the parents so that the mix can be cooked and served at home.
However as per reports the quality of the nutrimix is not up to the mark in four of the manufacturing units in Dakshina Kannada and since the food provided for the children at Anganwadis is of low quality, parents are reluctant to the accept the food. It is said that either 70% of the food product is buried, or simply thrown away by the parents who take it from the anganwadis due to pressure from anganwadi workers. Many more families say that they feed the nutrimix to the cattle as they feel guilty to throw it.
Lacks proper mixture of grains
Few anganwadi workers who complained about the nutrimix product said that there is laxity in the process of manufacturing the mixture. As per the procedure, wheat, rice, groundnut and turdal must be roasted before mixing. But carelessness while making the mixture is ruining the entire plan of providing health mix to children to combat malnutrition. Since the taste of the mixture is bad, parents refuse to take it from the anganwadi centres.
The issue was even brought to the notice of district in-charge minister B Ramanath Rai, who directed the officials to look into the matter.
Make it tasty
The food mixture for kids is being prepared in Mangaluru, Bantwal, Puttur and Belthangady units. But along with parents, anganwadi workers have been complaining about the tasteless food mixture. Though it has all the grains, it is not consumable, hence parents deny to accept it, say workers.
The ultimate solution to tackle the issue is to make the mixture tasty. The units preparing the product must address the matter. Only when the mixture tastes good, the parents and children will accept it, say the Anganwadi workers.
Sundara Poojary, district assistant director of Department of Women and Child Development said that the four units are efficiently producing the mixture. His claim is that the powder is not a ready to eat mixture. Instead, it needs to be roasted at home and sugar/ jaggery needs to be added as per requirement while making the porridge. He said that, he would still direct the workers to set right the procedure at the units in case there are lapses.
Whatever seems to be the reason, the tasteless health mix has ruined ambitious plans of the government of curbing malnutrition.
