In an effort to keep pace with the growing aspirations of the rural poor, the state government has agreed to hike the allocation for Mid Day Meal (MDM) programme in West Bengal from January 2010. But the allocation for Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), that means the allocation for per child at Anganwadi Centres, still remains far behind. So, a little nudge has come from the Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen's Pratichi Trust demanding a higher allocation for that too.
Yesterday, a workshop on ICDS organised by Pratichi Trust and Birbhum District Primary School Council, was held at Santiniketan where more than 180 primary school teachers, some anganwadi workers, state level project director of Mid Day Meal, and other officials discussed the problems afflicting the ICDS in presence of Sen. After deliberations and narrations of experience of the field workers, a demand was raised for higher allocation in ICDS, improvement in procurement of food grains and free flow of information in this regard to make the programme more participatory.
While the state has made remarkable progress in implementing the MDM, the neglect of ICDS remains baffling. According to data provided by the Department of Women and Child Development and Social Welfare, which handles the ICDS, the total number of ICDS centres in the state is 88,086, which covers nearly 50% of all eligible children. There has been a growing demand for setting up more centres in the state. Responding to that, theofficials of the department have declared that the government would soon set up another 25,000 centres to bring more children under its care.
The importance of the ICDS or the Angawaidi Centres (AWC) could not be stressed more as pointed out by the Pratichi Trust study. The Pratichi Trust Child Report (2009) has found out that, "Apart from nutritional intervention, mothers expressed strong preference for pre-school education of their children through the AWC. They want the centres to prepare their children for primary schools."
In a time when the UPA government is stretching its resources to ensure food security for all, the success of Mid Day Meal programme (besides the 100-day work) has become one of the major planks for alleviating poverty in rural India. Yet, in West Bengal, the government's achievement in this area remains mixed.
According to state government's internal assessment, while 16.5% of rural population barely manages to have one meal a day, another 3.5% rural population find it difficult to manage even that. According to 2001 census, the total rural population in the state was 5.71 crore. So, at least 20% of that remains in poverty. Yet, the state's response and intervention in this area has not yielded desired result so far. The prodding coming from Amartya Sen's Pratichi Trust on strengthening ICDS and MDM might go a long way to keep the issue alive in public arena.
