ICDS Scheme in Manipur: One 50 kg rice bag for six months
Company-foods being provided against Supreme Court directive
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, April 06 2013 : The quantity of rice for six months which should be provided to all the Anganwadi Centres has been replaced by providing just a 50 kg bag of rice in the State.

Apart from this, the State Government has defied the order of the Supreme Court of India which has imposed strict restrictions over providing supplementary foods made by certain companies to the Anganwadi Centres under the ICDS scheme.

On December 13, 2006, the Supreme Court of India passed an order prohibiting supply of company-made supplementary foods to Anganwadi Centres under its ICDS scheme.

But in spite of this standing order from the apex court, the State Government is still providing company-made supplementary foods to Anganwadi Centres in the State.

The main reason behind the order of the Supreme Court prohibiting supply of supplementary foods made by certain companies is because of the fact that the foods in different parts of the country are different.

It would not be a good approach on the part of the Government to provide the same kind of food to all the children below 6 years, pregnant women and mothers across the country as their food requirements and habits are different.

So, the Supreme Court has directed all the States to provide local foods with the required nutrients in it.

According to a highly placed source, not a single grain of rice has been distributed to the Anganwadi Centres under the third phase of ICDS scheme in the State even though more than Rs 3 crores worth quantity of rice had been withdrawn from the godown, the rice quota for the fourth phase of ICDS scheme was withdrawn in early part of April this year consequent to issuing the sanctioned order in March this year.

Deputy Director in-charge of ICDS, Department of Social Welfare, Government of Manipur L Shyama had taken the approval for withdrawing the rice and Director L Chitra had signed on the approval form.

However, not a single bag of rice has reached the hands of the concerned authorities of ICDS scheme, not to mention of it landing in the various Anganwadi centres spread across the length and breadth of the State.

The whole process of withdrawing the rice had been done on the table and huge amount of money had gone directly into the pockets of 'lucky' few officials.

An employee of the Social Welfare Department, on condition of anonymity, disclosed to Hueiyen Lanpao that a Deputy Director had forcefully taken the signatures of some of the CDPOs to 'confirm' that they have received the provided rice.

However, some of CDPOs, who resented such conduct, did not append their signatures.

Nevertheless, employees under ICDS scheme are received a bag of rice each while the Anganwadi Centres, where the sanctioned and withdrawn rice bags should actually go, have been deprived of any rice under ICDS scheme.

An Anganwadi worker informed Hueiyen Lanpao that a 50 kg bag of rice along with two packets of Fortified Foods Energy Dense Food (with and without milk) weighing 500 gm each was provided to the Anganwadi Centre where she works on March 26 last.

This packaged-food has already been banned by the Supreme Court of India from distributing to the Anganwadi centres.

The Anganwadi worker further informed that, since October last, just a 50 kg bag of rice has been provided to all the Anganwadi centres in the State and there is no hope for getting the remaining quantity of rice.

If the daily requirements are provided after every two/three months, then there is no meaning of ICDS scheme being implemented in the State, the Anganwadi worker had the last word.

Comment