Rs 9,600 crore needed for universalisation of Anganwadis

The Centre would require a budget allocation of Rs 9,600 crore each in 2006-07 and 2007-08 to achieve universalisation of Anganwadis in the country by 2008 as required by the Supreme Court in its recent order.

These calculations were projected in a presentation made before the National Advisory Council (NAC) in 2004 after it took up the issue of universalisation, which has been part of the common minimum programme of the UPA government.

The allocation for Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), which was extremely low at Rs 1,600 crore in 2004-05, has risen to Rs 4,087 crore in the current financial year.

The ICDS, on the admission of the Ministry of Women an Child Development, is accessed only by four crore out of the targeted seven to eight crore children in the age group of 6 to 9.

Universalisation would mean more than tripling the coverage, says the NAC presentation.

The NAC report goes on to suggest that expenditure per child should be doubled across the board as a first step towards improved quality. It says that tripling the coverage and doubling the expenditure would imply a six fold increase in total ICDS expenditure.

As far as the central government is concerned, this would mean raising the annual budget allocation for ICDS from Rs 1,600 crore to Rs 9,600 crore (at 2004-05 prices) by 2007.

The budget allocation for ICDS in 2006-07 was Rs 4,087 crore, a jump from the previous financial year's outlay of Rs 3,315 crore. The NAC had not specified a time frame for universalisation saying that the Supreme Court was still waiting for a reply from the Centre on the time frame it wanted.

It, however, said that there was no case for postponing universal coverage beyond the first year of the Eleventh Plan, i.e. 2007-08.