Dr. Jitendra Singh visits Tikri Anganwadi for Poshan Maah
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
At a village-level nutrition centre in Tikri, Udhampur, Union Science and Technology Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh stepped into an exhibition on 29 September 2026 that put children's plates — and their futures — at the centre of the frame, marking the 9th Rashtriya Poshan Maah under the Seva Sankalp Abhiyan.
What the Tikri exhibition put on display
The exhibition at the Bal Vidyalaya Anganwadi Kendra, Tikri showcased freshly prepared nutritious meals cooked at the centre itself — a deliberate demonstration that quality food need not travel far to reach young children. Alongside the hot meals, the displays covered child nutrition principles, dietary diversity, and the role of community participation in sustaining these outcomes.
The Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) — a conditional cash-transfer scheme for first-time pregnant and lactating mothers, operational since 2017 — featured prominently, underlining the government's push to link maternal financial support directly to nutritional behaviour change.
Poshan Maah and the architecture behind it
Rashtriya Poshan Maah has been observed every September since 2018, the same year the broader POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched as a multi-ministerial mission to drive convergence across nutrition programmes. The Anganwadi network — part of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) running since 1975 — remains the last-mile delivery point for supplementary nutrition, health check-ups, and early childhood education across India's villages.
Dr. Jitendra Singh, who represents Udhampur in Parliament, framed the visit within Prime Minister Narendra Modi's stated vision of a 'Swasth, Suposhit evam Vikasit Bharat' — a healthy, well-nourished and developed India. The minister noted that grassroots efforts of this kind contribute meaningfully to realising that national resolve.
Why Udhampur, why now
Ministerial field visits to Anganwadi centres during Poshan Maah are part of a wider pattern of mobilising community awareness in districts where scheme uptake and nutrition indicators need sustained attention. Jammu and Kashmir, as a union territory, receives direct central oversight on welfare delivery, making such visits both symbolic and administratively pointed.
The #AanganMilanSewa hashtag accompanying the post signals a coordinated outreach push across Anganwadi platforms — connecting workers, mothers, and local communities around shared nutrition goals in the final days of September's observance window.
With Poshan Maah closing out, the real measure will be whether the community participation visible at Tikri translates into sustained improvements in PMMVY enrolment and child nutrition outcomes across Udhampur — and whether the ministry publishes district-level data to prove it.