SHIKARPUR: The Sindh Rural Support Organisation (SRSO) on Wednesday devised a plan for implementing a four-year European Union-funded Programme for Improved Nutrition in Sindh (PINS) in Shikarpur district of northern Sindh province. As a programme partner of PINS, the SRSO project manager Nisar Ahmed Pathan asserted that the programme aims to reduce malnutrition and improve health of children under the age of five, and pregnant and lactating women. During a meeting with assistant commissioners (ACs) and district officers of several provincial departments, Pathan instructed the officers “Government of Sindh aims to reduce the stunting rate of malnutrition in children from the existing 48 percent to 40 percent by 2021 in the province,” he said. The programme also considers improving provincial government’s capacity for an effective implementation of multisectoral nutrition policy and allocates direct assistance in order to efficiently treat severe acute malnutrition in the rural districts. Reportedly, SRSO teams held separate meetings with Shikarpur AC Nizam Junejo, divisional forest officer Abdul Haleem Burriro, forest conservator Javed Mahar, deputy director Agriculture, Lal Dino Junejo, livestock management department deputy director Inayatullah Hakro, deputy director Shakeel Ahmed Bhutto, public health engineering department officials, local governing department and water management department. Published in Daily Times, July 12th 2018.