In a bid to address the child malnutrition in Madhya Pradesh, the state government had launched this year’s social welfare campaign called DASTAK Abhiyan on July 20 which is scheduled to wrap up tomorrow, on August 18. This year’s campaign witnessed the use of a digital tool for field monitoring which was jointly developed by the state government and a Canada-based not for profit organisation named Nutrition International which works on combating malnutrition across the world.

After a case of of malnutrition or disease is diagnosed, arrangements are made for their referral and treatment. Through the DASTAK Abhiyaan, the health workers also distribute iron and folic acid syrup for anaemia prevention, oral rehydration solution (ORS) packets and zinc tablets to manage diarrhoea and provide the dose of vitamin A to the child.

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Mansi Shekhar, Nutrition International’s state program representative for Madhya Pradesh was quoted in a press statement, “This year too, Nutrition International is proud to partner with the government of Madhya Pradesh in enabling the DASTAK Abhiyan across 52 districts, reaching 8.1 million children through 177,000 frontline workers”.

“We are also supporting in training the government officials in the use of the digital field monitoring tool, which allows real time monitoring of the campaign,” she added.

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Digital field monitoring tool

The press statement informed that Nutrition International in collaboration with the National Health Mission (NHM) has developed a digital field monitoring tool which enables real-time monitoring of the program’s activities across all the 52 districts of Madhya Pradesh and helps in identification of low-performing areas, thereby enabling effective review of the program and development of strategies to address barriers.

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“In addition to the development of the tool, Nutrition International has also supported in training state and district level officials and sharing analysis of data with government for timely and corrective action. This digital tool is designed such that it can also be accessed offline, thereby enabling entry of data even when internet connectivity is inconsistent,” the statement added.

The DASTAK Abhiyan, which literally translates as ‘door knock movement’, utilises the frontline workers such as auxilliary nurse midwives (ANM), accredited social health activists (ASHA), and angwanwadi workers for a door-to-door campaign to identify families with children up to the age of five years and screen them for common diseases such as diarrhoea, severe anaemia, severe acute malnutrition and this time COVID19.

Madhya Pradesh has a high stunting rate of 42 per cent. 3.3 million of under five children are stunted and 2.7 million are wasted.