Goal: Reduce the prevalence of anemia amongst school children aged 6-14 years of age.
Modality: Fortification of FCI rice at a centralized location and its distribution and consumption in the MDM across schools in Gajapati.
Coverage: 101,019 school children across 1440 schools in Gajapati
Duration: 30 months (duration of intervention is 20 months)
Support provided for fortification of Phase-I (2678 MT) & Phase-II(1924 MTs) of rice to be provided for on-site cooking of supplementary food provided under the MDM programmes in Gajapati district of Odisha.
At least 90 percent of the intended MDM beneficiaries in the age-group of 6 to 14 years receive fortified rice based meals.
Prevalence of anaemia in the intended beneficiaries reduced by 5 per cent.
Capacity of the state government built for procurement of appropriately fortified rice and its quality assurance.
Capacity of the rice miller built on blending of regular rice with fortified rice kernels and quality assurance protocols.
About 80% of the school children, teachers, and formal/informal community leaders are aware of micronutrient malnutrition, its consequences and strategies to address the same.
A replicable model developed for the state government based on monitoring and evaluation of the supply chain management of fortified rice provided in the MDM programmes.
A quasi-experimental design has been used to capture baseline and endline estimates across the project group (Gajapati) and non-project group (Rayagada). The non-project group has been included to provide statistical evidence for any change in the project group.
A mixed design has been used entailing quantitative and qualitative interviews across the key stakeholders: Children aged between 6-14 years, teachers, parents and community leaders.
The quantitative assessment included anthropometric, bio-chemical and cognitive assessment of children aged between 6-14 years. The qualitative interviews included focus group discussions with parents and community leaders.
63% boys and 67% girls attending school are anemic in Gajapati.
Amongst boys, 73% boys in the age group of 6-10 years are anemic while 44.1% are anemic in the age-group of 11-14 years.
Amongst girls, 74% in the age group of 6-10 years are anemic while 55.4% are anemic in the age-group of 11-14 years.
49.9% children have fallen ill in the 6 months preceding the survey. The common morbidities are fever &cough/cold.
32.9% children in Gajapati have high total leukocyte counts indicating high levels of infection.
78.4% children reported that nutritional education is given in schools. The common topics covered are importance of green veg., fruits, MDM, meat & eggs.
Knowledge about nutrition was reflected only through responses of 56.6% children.
96.7% teachers reported awareness on anemia.
3Approximately 80% of the teachers identified weakness and paleness as a symptom of anemia.
67.2% reported iron deficiency as a cause of anemia while 87.9% reported eating iron rich vegetables as a preventive strategy for anemia.
The mean attendance rate in school is 58%. This means that on an average only 58 out of 100 children are present in school on any given day.
3.5% children in Gajapati residing at home do not eat MDM at all while 9.7% do not eat it for all the 6 days of school.
Fortification.
Supply chain management.
Capacity building of the teachers and school management committee members.
Information, education and communication.
Quality assurance and quality control.
Monitoring.
| Items | Target | Achievement |
|---|---|---|
| Tonnage of Rice fortified .(MT) | 2678 | 1943 |
| Tonnage of rice distributed. (MT) | 2678 | 1941 |
| No. of school teachers trained . | 1385 | 1477 |
| No. of SMC members trained. | 1385 | 1093 |
| No. of other members trained (SHG,Cook etc). | --- | 987 |
| No. of NHED sessions organized in the schools. | Continuous. | 6362 |
Quality of rice received from FCI
Phased consumption of fortified rice in schools due to high rice balances
Cooking practice for rice
School attendance rates
Supply chain management
Monitoring
