Palakkad: The Women and Child Development Department of the Kerala government has come out with a scheme to provide nutritious food to malnourished, underweight children aged between 3 and 6 years.
The children will be given nutrition bar confection made of rice, wheat, maize, rags, groundnut, soybean powder, sesame seeds, palm jaggery, glucose and roasted Bengal gram.
The scheme is called ‘Thenamrith’ and the nutrition bar will be made under the supervision of the agriculture university.
Each child identified under the scheme will be given two 10g bars every month through anganwadis.
Since the anganwadis are closed now, the bars will be distributed to the identified children at their homes through either the anganwadi employees or ASHA workers.
It is estimated that there are 5,537 kids who are malnourished and underweight. Malappuram has the most number of malnourished children — 1,850. Pathanamthitta, with 106, has the least number of such kids.