Govt sees private sector's role in key child development scheme

Poor results in the National Family Health Survey have prompted the government to go for a revamp of its pre-school programme, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), and to seek corporate and NGO partners to help run anganwadis.

The ICDS is the only government programme for children up to the age of six which provides food and education.

The women and child development ministry has set up a panel to prepare a policy for allowing public-private parternships to run the programme.

"After the policy is ready in a few weeks, we intend to approach industry to forge partnerships in running the ICDS," said Chaman Kumar, the secretary in the ministry.

The ministry, the Planning Commission and the Prime Minister's Office are working on a plan to relaunch the programme in mission mode (on the line of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and the National Rural Health Mission).

"We cannot afford to waste public money. The ministry is looking inward to make the ICDS better," a ministry official said.

"For three decades, the scheme has been run in a particular way and the results are sub-optimal. We are now looking at relaunching it in mission mode with a project action plan for each district," Kumar said.

The new scheme would mean district-level planning and community involvement in the committees that would support the anganwadi workers.

The village health and nutrition committees would have community health and nutrition workers, panchayat members and representatives of NGOs, an official said.

These committees would ensure convergence of health and nutrition programmes, resulting in better achievement of health goals, officials said. States are also being consulted.

Ministry officials say the examples of states like Orissa, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, which have reported a decline in malnutrition rates, will be followed. These were the states which showed reduced rates of malnutrition in the recently released report of the third National Family Health Survey.