Sarbananda Sonowal unveils mascot ‘Misti’ to spread message of healthy baby

Special Correspondent

Silchar: The centralized concluding celebration of ‘Beti Bachao and Beti Padhao’ in Silchar on Saturday and the month-long campaign of the district administration of Cachar in coordination with the social welfare depatment has been significant and meaningful in many ways. The mascot of the sweet and healthy girl child ‘Misti’ which was unveiled by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal before the mammoth gathering of cheering mothers with babies, citizens and mediapersons gave out the message that a well nursed and well fed baby with nutrition would grow to become good and responsible women of the country.

It was a part of the much hyped ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ abhiyan launched by the visionary Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 8, 2018 at Jhunjhun town of Rajasthan with a call to fight malnutrition and under nourishment. The month of September dedicated to ‘Poshan’ meaning nutritious food involved 5 important components critical for a healthy child. The district administration of Cachar and the social welfare department deserve appreciation to give a new dimension and direction to the campaign.

With the active and dynamic involvement of Anganwadi workers, ASHA volunteers as well as Auxiliary Nurse Midwives, the message sent out to mothers was first 1000 days of a child need critical care. Particular focus is to be on diarrhoea management, nutritious food, sanitation, hygiene and check on anaemia. All this is important to curb the declining girl child sex ratio. ‘Save the girl child and educate her’ was well sent to the psyche of mothers. They were all the more encouraged when the Chief Minister came down from the podium to be with mothers and offered their babies nutrition.

Sarbananda Sonowal was happy to see the sincere efforts of the social welfare department and the hard working Deputy Commissioner Laya Madduri’s initiatives to turn the ‘Poshan Mah’ into a blitzkrieg movement. He also called it a supplement to the ‘Fit India Movement’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to empower citizens of the country to live healthy with required level of nourishment and free from diseases. The theme was complimentary feeding overreaching programme of holistic nutrition, a muti-ministerial convergence with the target to abolish malnutrition by 2022.

The month long ‘Poshan’ campaign did succeed in conveying the message to people to reduce high infant mortality rate and maternal mortality ratio in Barak Valley, mostly attributed to malnutrition in mother. Healthy mothers can give birth to healthy children. Minister Pramila Rani Brahma who was also present advised the women folk to follow the message of the month in letter and spirit. All said and done, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s creative and constructive ideas are giving the nation the much needed boost up to live a healthy and wealthy life.