This was the third visit of Citizens Alliance on Malnutrition, a group comprising mostly Members of Parliament. Orissa was an important stop for this advocacy group towards drafting a strategy that will push the Government for a national policy and action plan.

Orissa has had dramatic results in lowering malnutrition - underweight children are down from 54 per cent in 1998-99 to 44 per cent in 2006. Clearly, something is working in the state that could be applied to other BIMARU states.

Part of the answer lies in the successful Anganwadis of the state. These centres, meant for children between the age of zero and five, take care of their health and nutritional needs.

The first stop for the group was a village in Selepur block of Cuttack district. Here they found a new intervention at work that is now being scaled up by the Orissa Government. It is called Ame bi Paribu (We too can) or what is known as Positive Deviance approach. This scheme, successfully implemented in Vietnam and West Bengal, now covers 4,000 Anganwadis of the state and would be expanded to 19,000 by 2010.

Statistics show that 66 per cent of mothers have accessed services in these centres, which is one of the higher numbers anywhere in the country.

“The other positive development in the state has been the growth of Self Help Groups. There are several lakh groups in the state,” said Jay Panda, BJD MP from the state and an active member of the Alliance. These groups have taken over the charge of cooking mid-day meals and supplementing food for the nutrition programmes run by Anganwadis.

The previous stop was Maharashtra where they learnt about fortification. The next stop is Bihar and West Bengal and would be organised by Shahnawaz Husain, who is also part of this Alliance.

“Most of this is about alleviating hunger. We should not cloak it in other words that does not show the magnitude of the problem,” said Shyam Benegal, filmmaker and now a MP, on his first visit with the group.