Shillong, March 19: Meghalaya Chief Minister Mr. Conrad K Sangma and Social Welfate Minister Mr. Paul Lyngdoh met the union minister Smt. Annapurna Devi incharge for Women and Child Development, Government of India in New Delhi and handed letter seek support for the state of Meghalaya.
Meghalaya Chief Minister congratulate her for the stupendous efforts of Ministry of Women and Child Development for the welfare and well-being of children and women especially to extend nutritional security to a vast population of infants and children in their formative early childhood and pregnant and lactating mothers through Supplementary Nutrition Programme.
Meghalaya with its landmark & pioneering Early Childhood Development Mission also aims at the holistic development of children starting from conception till the age of 8 years. Our goals and vision are aligned with the vision of the Ministry of Women and Child Development as we strive to battle malnutrition and eradicate stunting and wasting in our State.
In this regard he wish to draw the attention to issues the State is facing with regard to Supplementary Nutrition Programme. As per MPR data the State has 5,85,254 beneficiaries whereas under POSHAN TRACKER only 4,00,572 POSHAN 2.0 beneficiaries are registered.
This means that 1,84,682 beneficiaries are left out. This is a significant 31.56% of all our eligible and registered beneficiaries which are getting missed out due to a variety of reasons. The State Government has stepped up its efforts for Aadhaar enrolment and seeding of these beneficiaries.
The procurement of smartphones for Anganwadi Workers is in its final stages. An intensive campaign for e-KYC and capturing facial recognition has already kickstarted in campaign mode.
As such, the Chief Minister request for providing the state a window of six months to enable the state to enroll and link all our beneficiaries through Aadhaar and ekYC and facial recognition system which shall be a big support extended to the State.
He also request if the State could be also allowed to cover all our recorded and registered MPR beneficiaries also for SNP till such time and he seek support in this regard from the Union Government.
