Bhubaneswar: Wipro Chairman and founder Azim Premji on Tuesday met Odisha’s Chief Minister (CM) Naveen Patnaik at the Secretariat to discuss on strengthening and scaling-up of nutrition programme in Odisha.
Premji congratulated Patnaik on the progress made under his leadership in improving health and well-being of women and children during the last ten years.
He appreciated the Chief Minister’s efforts in consequent dramatic reduction in infant mortality rate from 65 percent in 2005-2006 to 40 percent in 2015-2016, and the focus of the state government on the health of adolescent girls-the recent announcement on free distribution of sanitary napkins to all girls studying in government school from the 6th standard onwards.
Premji stressed on future opportunities around addressing malnutrition by expanding the successful MAMATA scheme of conditional cash transfer to cover all children until the age of 2 years to address malnutrition within the first 1000 days of a child’s life.
Premji was in Odisha on a two-day tour during which he visited a tribal residential school and also undertook field visits to Anganwadi Centre and SHGs under Odisha Livelihood Mission for his philanthropic works.
Premji philanthropic initiatives, with technical support of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), have helped the state government to scale-up its school Adolescent Health and Nutrition programme.
It aims to implement the improved model of life skills education and peer learning through digitized and multi-media tools along with a periodic screening of students on key nutrition indicators (Anemia and low Body Mass Index), iron-folic acid supplementation and dietary diversity.
Vision 2020 of Azim Premji philanthropic initiatives will strengthen implementation of the programme in 900 tribal residential schools in 13 high burden districts of Odisha, covering about 2 lakh adolescents.
