Bhubaneswar: Feb 18: Under the leadership of Shri Jagadanandaji, mentor of CYSD, a team of CSOs met Shri Ranglal Jamuda, Chairman, Odisha State Food Commission and its members to discuss and share the outcome of the Odisha Vikash Conclave (OVC) for devising a concrete plan of action to deepen food and nutrition security (FNS) agenda of the state. The team, led by Shri Jagadanada Ji presented the issues related to FNS before the Commission like poor nutritional status of the children especially in the tribal pockets of the state, supply and demand side gaps in the delivery of the public services to address the last mile issue and possible solution like nutrition mission, convergence at state and ground zero. The team of CSOs suggested for the need of a convergence of policy and practice among the drivers like Health and Family welfare, ICDS, drinking water and sanitation, school and mass education, ST,SC and Minorities, agriculture and rural development to have a sustainable FNS. The meeting also discussed regarding the possible way outs to address the FNS of PVTGs in tribal pockets of Odisha. Participants suggested for food based nutrition security through dietary diversity, piloting an intensive intervention in selected GPs in tribal area, IT based monitoring and community led monitoring exercise of the NFSA related flagship programmes such as PDS, MDM, and ICDS, MBS (Maternity Benefit Scheme) at ground zero and at state level. The delegation of CSOs further suggested initiating a Pilot Programme in the district of Malkangiri and Koraput to redress the food and nutrition insecurity through a consortium of experienced organisastion like WASSAN, CYSD with the technical support of SDRC. Looking at its impact and result, the strategy can be revised and up-scaled in the state. The food commission can play the role of a mentor and assist in interface management both at the district and state level.
On the other side, the commission urged the CSOs to undertake the community led monitoring tools like social audit, citizen report card, community score card, and expenditure tracking in order to improve the delivery of the public services under schemes like PDS, MDM, ICDS and MBS. Jagadanandaji assured the commission to undertake such exercises with a consortium approach led by CYSD in the state. The state commission was requested to provide an enabling environment for this exercise.
An intensive public awareness and education at ground level is the need of the hour in order to bring the eligible excluded beneficiaries into the PDS and encourage the ineligible included beneficiaries to opt out of the PDS for making the NFSA more realistic and inclusive. Participants suggested for a GPS based dashboard, which can be developed by the consortium for monitoring the status of food and nutrition security at ground on a regular basis. This will enable the commission to suggest the government for the course correction. Odisha Budget Accountability Centre (OBAC), a policy and budget research unit of CYSD has been suggested by the Commission to do a budget analysis for various schemes like PDS, ICDS, MDM and Maternal Benefit Scheme (MBS) at union government and state government level to provide the budgetary trends and priorities in the area of FNS to the commission.
The commission has prepared a panel of NGOs/CSOs to work on FNS in the state. However, it was emphasized that the selection of the NGOs/CSOs should be based on their credibility and reliability and CYSD can provide a framework for selection of the groups.
