Anganwadi Services under the Umbrella ICDS Scheme is a flagship programme of Government of India. It provides six services to the beneficiaries i.e. children below six years of age and Pregnant Women & Lactating Mothers. These services are provided at the Anganwadi Centres which are child friendly centres manned by Anganwadi Workers/ Anganwadi Helpers. AWCs are equipped with adequate infrastructure, facilities (kitchen, safe drinking water & child-friendly toilets), wall painting, play space and joyful learning environment. They are essential for care and development of children in the age group of 0-6 years as well as pregnant women and lactating mothers.
Introducing reforms in the aforesaid scheme is a continuous process. During the XII Five Year Plan and thereafter, a number of reforms have taken place viz; introducing new interventions in the scheme, release of funds based on the Annual Programme Implementation Plan of the States/UTs, improving the service conditions of the AWWs/AWHs by giving them better opportunities in their career, improving the availability of water and sanitation at the AWCs, increasing the number of constructed AWC buildings, introducing Early Childhood Care & Education policy, Curriculum and Standards for ECCE, bringing a rapid improvement in monitoring mechanism by introducing Rapid Reporting System, increasing the cost norms for Supplementary Nutrition given to the beneficiaries, e-learning courses for AWWs/AWHs, setting up of state-of-the art Quality Control Laboratories at four regional centres, etc. These are few to count but the process of reforms is a continuous one.
Recently, the Government has approved setting up of National Nutrition Mission which has a number of new components contributing to the improved services under the Anganwadi Services i.e. monitoring of the scheme through Common Application Software, introducing incentive for better performing States, provision of incentives for AWWs for using Smartphone, etc.
Ministry of Women and Child Development while conveying the approval of Annual Programme Implementation Plan (APIP) 2017 proposals submitted by the States/UTs for Anganwadi Services Scheme under the Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services Scheme has asked the States/UTs to immediately undertake head count of the beneficiaries. This has been done to eliminate the number of ghost beneficiaries.
Under the Anganwadi Services Scheme, 5-tier monitoring & review mechanism is already in place at National, State, District, Block and Anganwadi Levels.
This information was given by Minister of State for Women and Child Development, Dr. Virendra Kumar in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.
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