Centre asks states to make Integrated Child Development Scheme universally accessible

The aim is to allow for the delivery of these services across the country

The Centre is going to make the benefits of the Integrated Child Development Scheme universally accessible across the country. The union ministry of Women and Child Development has written to different states asking them to make these changes.

This means that beneficiaries in any part of the country can avail the system, even when they relocate within states. Under the ICDS, children under the age of six years and their mothers are given supplementary nutrition (SNP), nutrition and health education, immunisation, etc.

Senior ministry officials, at the sidelines of a zonal meeting at Gujarat’s Kevadia, said that Gujarat and other states have been the provision of allowing for intra-state movement. The aim now is to allow for the delivery of these services across the country; states have been told to work towards the end.

“It is a work in progress. The process allows us to identify beneficiaries better,” a senior ministry official said. The official added that the system will be linked to Aadhaar cards, and in Gujarat, for instance, delivery of nutrition food packets with anganwadis are OTP-based.

The WCD ministry had introduced pre-printed packets with barcodes for SNP food packets to cut down on pilferage in 2017. Anganwadis now have Aadhaar kits to initiate Aadhaar cards for children in the anganwadi system.

The universalisation will help as many as 89 crore beneficiaries of the ICDS programme. This includes children between the age of 6 months to 6 years, and pregnant women and lactating mothers. Officials said the move is to help migrant workers when they move from town to town, to avert the problems that arose during the Covid-19 lockdown.

WCD officials said that the ministry’s nutrition focus is on the early days of infancy for a child, and for the 1000 days of pregnancy for the mother. The ministry recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months for an infant.

Apart from the ministry’s flagship nutrition programme, the Poshan Abhiyaan, the Umbrella ICDS also includes the maternity benefits programme Prandhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, the National Creche Scheme, the Child Protection Scheme, and the Scheme for Adolescent Girls.