Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, September 22 2010:
Funds sanctioned by the Social Welfare Department for providing food items and money to pregnant women and children under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) have not reached the beneficiaries at the grass root level.
A source in the Social Welfare Department said that milk, rice and money are being provided to Anganwadi Centres to feed the children with one glass of milk in the morning and for serving cooked food to the children before they leave the centres in addition to monetary allowance of Rs 4 per child per day.
Under the same scheme, each pregnant woman is entitled to Rs 5 per day as take home ration money.
Earlier, each child was given only Rs 2 while pregnant women got Rs 2.30 each.
The Government of India increased these allowances to Rs 4 and Rs 5 respectively during 2009-10 .
But the State Government implemented this revised rate only in 2010-11, conveyed the source.
The ICDS project is regarded as a very noble scheme.
But it is suffering from a major setback as money sanctioned for the scheme have not reached the grass root level or the intended beneficiaries.
Cooked foods entitled to children could not be served in right quantities.
Though reports submitted by Anganwadi Centres to Social Welfare Department list usually exaggerate the number of children, in reality most of the Anganwadi Centres have fewer number of children.
In their efforts to implement the scheme properly, officials of the department made surprise and random visits to Anganwadi Centres.
In many cases, the officials found neither any children nor could they meet Helpers (Anganwadi) or Workers.
Nevertheless, money, milk and rice sanctioned for these Centres have been already released up to the last month.
As the Government of India has agreed to a 20 per cent additional Anganwadi Centres, the number of Anganwadi Centres has increased considerably.
Taking serious note of the anomalies in the implementation of the scheme, the department is seriously studying effective means of implementing the scheme.
Irrespective of whether age of a child is fit for formal education or not, most parents prefer proper schools to Anganwadi Centres.
As such, the number of children attending Anganwadi Centres is quite low though large numbers of children are enrolled at these centres.
This demands coordination between school education and social welfare, added the source.