Union Minister of Home Affairs and Cooperation Amit Shah will inaugurate the NDDB Foundation for Nutrition’s CSR Conclave in New Delhi today on January 6, 2026, marking a significant step in positioning cooperatives at the centre of India’s nutrition security strategy.
The conclave reflects the growing emphasis of the Ministry of Cooperation on leveraging the country’s vast cooperative network to address critical social challenges such as child malnutrition.
The event, themed around the role of Corporate Social Responsibility in nutrition security and malnutrition mitigation, highlights how cooperative institutions, particularly dairy cooperatives, are being integrated into public welfare delivery systems. Under Amit Shah’s leadership, cooperatives are increasingly being viewed not just as economic entities, but as community-based institutions capable of delivering targeted social outcomes at scale.
At the conclave, Shah will launch the third phase of the Giftmilk Programme under the CSR initiative of SAIL–Bhilai Steel Plant. The programme will benefit around 4,000 children studying in government schools located in mining-affected areas of Chhattisgarh.
Fortified flavoured milk enriched with Vitamins A and D will be supplied through the Chhattisgarh Milk Federation, a dairy cooperative managed by NDDB, demonstrating how cooperative supply chains can ensure consistent and nutritious food delivery to vulnerable populations.
Another major initiative to be launched by Shah is the Shishu Sanjeevani Programme, supported through the CSR initiative of IDBI Bank. The programme aims to provide nutritional support to nearly 3,000 children attending anganwadi centres in rural areas of Nagpur district, Maharashtra.
Shishu Sanjeevani is an energy-dense, ready-to-eat fortified nutritional supplement developed by NDDB and will be manufactured by the Bhandara Milk Union, further underscoring the role of cooperative milk unions in translating scientific nutrition solutions into community-level interventions.
The conclave will bring together senior representatives from multiple central ministries, chairpersons and CEOs of public and private sector companies, dairy cooperative leaders, scientists from leading research institutions, and representatives from beneficiary institutions such as schools and anganwadi centres. The broad participation reflects the government’s push for collaborative frameworks that combine corporate resources, cooperative infrastructure and public policy objectives.
Following the inaugural session, technical deliberations will be held on themes including nutrition and health through public interventions, and corporate–cooperative collaboration for nutrition security. These sessions are expected to focus on scalable and sustainable models where cooperatives serve as last-mile partners for CSR-driven nutrition programmes.
With around 1,200 participants expected from across the country, the conclave is positioned as a national platform to advance cooperative-led solutions to malnutrition.
