Plans to eradicate malnutrition by growing a Nutrition Park

To tackle the problem of malnutrition among children in the District, Mysore Zilla Panchayat has come out with a novel idea by planning to setup 'Nutrition Parks' at several places in the district.

With this not only the problem of malnutrition will be addressed partially it will also provide jobs to hundreds of unemployed youths under 'Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)'

The project will be implemented by the Department of Horticulture, where the department has identified and grown around 1,20,000 plants, which are naturally rich in various kinds of proteins and vitamins.

The Department has raised saplings of different plants at its farm and nurseries situated at Yelachanehalli, Yelwal Hobli, Mysore Taluk, at Rangasamudra near Bannur, T Narasipur and at Kabini, HD Kote Taluk.

Papaya, Drumstick, Chakramani, Duranth and various other vegetable as well as fruit plants have be grown in these parks which will be set at different places in the district.

These saplings in turn will be distributed for planting in seven Taluks of the District. 60 beneficiaries have been identified from each Taluk who will be employed as daily labourers under MGNREGA.

The beneficiaries will be taking care of nurturing and watering the plants, apart from planting the saplings at places like Anganwadi, backyard of schools and hospitals, vacant Government lands and at several public utility places where the plants can grow. The fruits and vegetables harvested from these plants will be given to children coming to Anganwadi.

MS Raju, Senior Assistant Director of Horticulture Mysore said that Rs 5.6 lakh has been sanctioned by ZP for this project. “The plants raised in this 'Nutrition Garden' will help combat malnutrition, where leaves of some plants can be consumed raw by children. For example, a plant by name Chakramani has several types of nutrition elements in it and can be consumer raw,” he added.

The Department will start distributing the saplings by next week and by the end of this month planting the saplings at designated places will be completed.