The Poshan Abhiyaan (Prime Minister's Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment) is a flagship Centrally Sponsored Scheme and India's National Nutrition Mission, not an act or a judgment. It was launched on March 8, 2018, in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. The scheme was created to address the persistent and high levels of malnutrition in India, which included stunting, wasting, and anemia, despite decades of existing welfare programs. The problem it solved was the lack of a unified, technology-driven, and convergent approach to tackle malnutrition.
The Abhiyaan works by adopting a multi-sectoral, lifecycle-based strategy, with a special focus on the critical first 1,000 days of a child's life, from conception to two years of age. Key mechanisms include Convergence of efforts from over 26 ministries and departments, such as the National Health Mission (NHM) and the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). It uses Technology-Driven Monitoring through the Poshan Tracker application, which enables real-time data collection and tracking of nearly 9 crore beneficiaries across over 14 lakh Anganwadi Centres. A core provision is the Jan Andolan (People's Movement) approach, which mobilizes communities through campaigns like Poshan Maah and Poshan Pakhwada to drive behavioral change. The scheme aims to reduce stunting in children (0-6 years) from 38.4% to 25% by 2022, and reduce anemia by 3% per annum.
The Abhiyaan is closely connected to the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme, which provides the foundational service delivery network through Anganwadi Centres. It also connects to the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), which provides maternity benefits. The scheme has recently changed: in the Union Budget 2021–22, the original Poshan Abhiyaan, Anganwadi Services, and the Scheme for Adolescent Girls were subsumed under the umbrella Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0. This consolidation aims to strengthen nutritional content and delivery, with a new focus on diet diversity, food fortification, and the use of millets. The core pillars of technology, convergence, and community mobilization have stayed the same, but are now integrated into a unified framework.