29k anganwadi centres without ration for 2 yrs

Vikas Sharma

Advertisement

Tribune News Service

Jammu, October 4

After the poor implementation of the Midday Meal Scheme, the Centre’s flagship Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) scheme has become a victim of official neglect in the state.

More than 29,000 anganwadi centres are without ration for the past two years and anganwadi workers, who have been paying from their own pockets to provide food to children, have not been reimbursed.

A visit to a few anganwadi centres in the old Jammu city area gave a glimpse of the grim scenario prevailing in these centres. Some of these were either closed or had thin attendance of children.

“Ration has not been not supplied to the centres for the past few years and we have been spending from our own pocket to provide food to poor children,” said Sunita Kapoor, incharge of an anganwadi centre in the old Jammu city.

“Sometimes, it is very difficult to arrange food items to run the centre, but we have no option but to provide food to poor children,” she said.

“Now, there is a new directive that each anganwadi centre should have at least two rooms, kitchen, washroom and a lobby. For this, the government should first enhance the rent amount to Rs 3,000 from the existing Rs 750,” she said.

“Since centres in the old city are short of space, we have now sought construction of more rooms as per government guidelines,” she said, maintaining, “In the old city, the rent of one room is around Rs 2,500 per month, but we are getting a meagre rent of Rs 750 to provide space to run the centre.”

“It takes months to get even Rs 750, as there is inconsistency on part of the government to pay rent on time,” said Kamlesh Devi, who rented out her house for an anganwadi centre.

Sources claimed that last year, the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development had released an annual grant of Rs 39.75 crore under the ICDS scheme, but still, the poor children and school drop-out girls were deprived of their full nutritional quota by the state social welfare department.

Farooq Lone, secretary, social welfare department, told The Tribune that the issue of non-supply of food and nutritional items to the anganwadi centres would be resolved soon. “The process of supplying food and other nutritional items has already been started and we are hopeful of resolving the matter at the earliest,” said Lone.

“We are trying our best, so that all anganwadi centres in the state receive the supply within a few days,” he said.