Researchers from St John’s Medical College, in collaboration with WHO-India, have designed and released a software tool to aid in designing appropriate, diversified and economical supplementary nutrition provisions for the Government’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).
Developed by Professors Tinku Thomas and Anura Kurpad at St John’s Medical College and Harshpal Singh Sachdev at the Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science and Research in New Delhi, the software tool can be customised to work as a mobile application as well. With funding from WHO-India, the software tool was developed for all States of India in association with the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) Hyderabad and several other institutions in the country. The software tool will be disseminated at an online WHO programme on August 11.
“The software tool can suggest supplementary feeding in the form of a take-home-ration or as a hot cooked meal/snack to be served at Anganwadis. It can optimise food provisions for children or pregnant women and lactating mothers, to meet their recommended needs of several nutrients, through complex linear programming,” Prof. Kurpad told The Hindu.
