Under Anganwadi Services, a package of six services, namely, (i) Supplementary Nutrition; (ii) Pre-school Non-formal Education; (iii) Nutrition & Health Education; (iv) Immunization; (v) Health Check-up; and (vi) Referral Services has been provided to all eligible beneficiaries, namely, children in the age group of 0-6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers through the platform of Anganwadi Centres across the country. Three of the services viz. Immunization, Health Check-up and Referral Services are related to health and are provided through National Health Mission (NHM) & Public Health Infrastructure.

The Services are provided to all eligible beneficiaries, who register themselves at the Anganwadi Centres, without any limitation and necessary awareness has been created among public to avail the nutritional and health services provided.

All Anganwadi Centres have been sanctioned to States/UTs. Further, the Ministry has requested State Governments to re-visit the issue of availability of Anganwadi Centres at the habitation level and determine the actual requirement of AWCs vis-a-vis the population of the area, number of children actually attending the AWCs and the number of AWCs available.

Further, modernization /upgradation of Anganwadi Centres is a continuous effort by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. Some of the measures taken by the Ministry for modernization of AWCs are as follows:

 

1. Under SakshamAnganwadi, 2 lakh Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) (40,000 AWCs per year) across the country are being upgraded for improved nutrition delivery and early childhood care and education for development of children under 6 years of age. During FY 2022-23, 41,192 AWCs have been identified in aspirational districts for upgradation as SakshamAnganwadis with better infrastructure including LED screens, water purifier/installation of RO machines, smart learning and audio-visual aids, child-friendly learning equipment and internet/wifi connectivity through Bharatnet wherever feasible.

 

2. For construction of AWC buildings across the country under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in convergence with Anganwadi Services (now known SakshamAnganwadi and POSHAN 2.0 Scheme), construction cost has been revised from Rs.7 lakh to Rs.12 lakh per unit under the revised Scheme – Poshan 2.0.

 

3. Under Swachhta Action Plan, Rs.10,000/- per AWC has been provided for drinking water facilities in and Rs.12,000/-per AWC for toilet facilities, which has now been revised to Rs.17,000/- per AWC and Rs.36,000/- per AWC respectively.

 

4. Grants are sanctioned for purchase of water filter, furniture, equipment, etc.

 

5. Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) have been technologically empowered with Smart Phones for efficient service delivery. (approx 11 lakh). The mobile application has digitized and automated the physical registers used by AWWs which has also helped in improving their quality of work.

 

6. Streamlined guidelines were issued on 13.01.2021, covering several aspects such as quality assurance, roles and responsibilities of duty holders, procedure for procurement, integrating AYUSH concepts.

 

7. 'Poshan Tracker', a robust ICT enabled platform, has been launched in March 2021 to ensure real-time monitoring of provisioning of supplementary nutrition by use of data analytics for prompt supervision and management of services. The system shall enable real time monitoring and tracking of all AWCs, AWWs and beneficiaries on defined indicators.

 

This information was given by the Minister of Women and Child Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

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