midday meal & aganwadi- nithin
TRANSCRIPT
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Nithin chowdary pavuluri
S.id: 20100105
Mid-Day Meal in IndiaIndia has a population of over 1.2 billion
1and about a quarter of its total population are children aged
between 6-14 years. This is growing big in the international stage with India having worlds largest
young population. But what goes off stage is a majority of them share the socio-economic deprivation
of their parents, and not having access to essential requirements of nutrition, health-care and learning
opportunities. Children who suffer from hunger do not have the same potential for learning as healthy
and well-nourished children. Poor nutrition among school aged children will diminish their cognitive
development either through physical changes or by reducing their ability to participate in learning or
both. Malnutrition and lack of education is not only a matter of social problem but also a problem of
economic and political problem which needs to be addressed seriously.
The Midday Meal Program, though in existence in Tamil Nadu since the 1960s, was introduced
thought out the country under the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education
(NP-NSPE), as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme, on 15th August 19952. This program would address
the issue of malnutrition amongst schoolchildren in India by providing them hot cooked and
nutritious meals every school day. The Mid Day Meal is the worlds largest school feeding
programme reaching out to about 12 crore children in over 12.65 lakh schools/EGS centers across the
country. On 28 November, 2001 the highest judicial authority of the country, the Supreme Court also
spoke about malnutrition in schools, and issued the following order:
Implement the Mid-Day Meal Scheme by providing every child in every government and
government assisted primary school with a prepared mid-day meal with a minimum content of 300
calories and 8-12 grams of protein each day of school for a minimum of 200 days This case properly
came to be known as The Right to food case3
The main objectives of this program are:
Improving the nutritional status of children in classs I-V in Government, Local Body and
Government aided schools, and EGS and AIE centers. Encouraging poor children, belonging to disadvantaged sections, to attend school more
regularly and help them concentrate on classroom activities.
1Census 2011:Total population of India is 1.21 billion,(www.indiandefence.com/forums/f31/census-2011-total-
population-india-1-21-billion-5442/;last visited 11/9/2011, 12:00pm) ; also see
http://www.indiaonlinepages.com/population/india-current-population.html2The Department of food & Public Distribution, (http://fcamin.nic.in/dfpd_html/index.asp; /;last visited 11/9/2011, 12:00pm)3, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties vs. Union of India and Others, Writ Petition (Civil) No 196 of 2001.
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Providing nutritional support to children of primary stage in drought affected areas duringsummer vacation.
4
In short, the objectives can be broken simpler as:
To improve the nutritional and health standard of the growing children. To reduce drop-out rate and to increase attendance and to attract poorer children to come to
the school.
To create supplementary employment opportunities at the village level. To achieve social and national integration. To supplement state efforts towards removal of poverty.
To achieve the above objectives a cooked mid-day meal with the following nutritional content is
provided to be all eligible children.
As per information available, all States/UTs are providing cooked mid-day meals to children of
classes I-VIII studying in the above categories of schools, irrespective of the fact of whether these are
run/managed by Panchayati Raj Institutions or not.
The Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development has
prescribed a comprehensive and elaborate mechanism for monitoring and supervision of the Mid-Day
Meal Scheme. TheMonitoring Mechanism includes the following:
Arrangements for local level monitoring Display of Information under Right to Information Act Inspections by State Government Officers Responsibility of Food Corporation of India (FCI) Periodic Returns Monitoring by Institutions of Social Science Research Grievance Redressal
Interestingly the Allocation for Mid-Day Meal (MDM) in FY 2010-11 (in crore) was Rs. 9,4405.
Apart from the central sanctions even the State government allocations for MDM components vary.
Uttar Pradesh allocates Rs. 3.63 per child per school day for cooking costs, while Bihar allocates
Rs.2.58 and Tamil Nadu allocates Rs. 4.
4Objectives, india.gov.in,( http://india.gov.in/sectors/education/mid_day_meal.php, last visited last visited 11/9/2011,
12:00pm)5Accountability Initiative,;http://www.accountabilityindia.in/sites/default/files/budget-mid-day-meal/mid-
day_meal_scheme_goi_2010-112.pdf
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Many NGOs have been actively taking part to make this program a good success some such case
studies are:
AkshayPatra, Bangalore
The program, which started on a small scale in June 2000 in Bangalore, feeding 1,500 children in five
schools, has progressively scaled up to serve around 2,01,000 children in 486 schools in and around
the city as of September 2007, covering government, corporation and government-aided schools. The
aim now is to cover 250,000 hungry children in the district and make Bangalore and its rural districts,
hunger-free.
NaandiFoundation, Hyderabad
Children attending government schools come from poorest of the poor families. With incomes below
the poverty line, for most of these children having one square meal a day is sometimes not possible.
For a majority of them the midday meal is the only meal they have in a day.
Naandi on behalf of the Government of Andhra Pradesh runs what is probably the worlds largest
Midday meal kitchen in Hyderabad to feed the children of the 1023 government schools including
NCLP (National Child Labour Project schools), NRBC (Non Resident Bridge Course) and RBC
(Residential Bridge Course) in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secundrabad. Unlike the servingquantities stipulated by the Supreme Court, Children get unlimited supply of rice and curry from the
kitchen.
Notwithstanding the good work done by many other NGO, the Mid-Day Meal Scheme has been
marred by various controversies and scams that have been unearthed since it was started.
In January 2006, the Delhi Police unearthed a scam in the Mid-Day Meal Scheme. In December
2005, the police had seized eight truckloads (2,760 sacks) of rice meant for primary schoolchildren
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi -
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being carried from Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns in Bulandshahr District of UP to North
Delhi.
In December 2006, The Times of India reported a scam involving government schools that siphon off
food grains under the mid-day meal scheme by faking attendance. The modus operandi of the schools
was simplethe attendance register would exaggerate the number of students enrolled in the class.
The additional students would not existthey were "enrolled" to get additional food grains whichwere pocketed by the school staff.
Despite long-established early childhood care and nutrition provision under the auspices of The
Integrated Child Development Services Programme (ICDS), India still faces a Malnutrition crisis:
45% of children under the Age of 5 in India is stunted (low height-forage), Higher than for all of sub-
Saharan Africa (UNICEF 2009).
After analyzing the whole project, one can see that despite all the above scams and disability, the
following achievements have been seen:
Enrolment, retention and attendance
Nutritional impact
Socialization and Educational benefits
Social benefits (esp. for women)
Form of Income support
Apart from the above mentioned, the most important is the community participation, where, the
parents contributed towards improving menus, or purchase of utensils and Self-help groupscoming forward to help.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godownhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulandshahr_Districthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_of_Indiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_operandihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_operandihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_of_Indiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulandshahr_Districthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godown -
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AnganwadiAnganwadi is a government sponsored child-care and mother-care center in India. It caters to children
in the 0-6 age group. It was started by the Indian government in 1975 as a part of the Integrated Child
Development Services program to combat child hunger and malnutrition. The main objective of this
programme is to cater to the needs of the development of children in the age group of 3-6 years. The
beneficiaries are mainly children up to six years of age.6Pre-school education aims at ensuring
holistic development of the children and to provide learning environment to children, which is
conducive for promotion of social, emotional, cognitive and aesthetic development of the
child.7Anganwadi attempts to bridge the caloric gap between the national recommended and average
intake of children and women in low income and disadvantaged communities.
The objectives of the ICDS are to improve the nutritional and health status of pre-school children in
the age group of birth to six years; to lay the foundation for the proper psychological development of
the child; to reduce the incidence of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition, and school drop-out; to
achieve effective coordination of policy and implementation among the various departments to
promote child development; and to enhance the capability of the mother to look after the normal
health of the child through proper nutrition and health education.8
The Anganwadi system is mainly managed by the Anganwadi worker. She is a health worker chosen
from the community and given 4 months training in health, nutrition and child-care. She is in charge
of an Anganwadi which covers a population of 1000. 20 to 25 Anganwadi workers are supervised by
a Supervisor called Mukhyasevika. 4 Mukhyasevika are headed by a Child Development Projects
Officer (CDPO).
There are an estimated 1.053 million Anganwadi centers employing 1.8 million mostly-femaleworkers and helpers across the country. They provide outreach services to poor families in need of
immunization, healthy food, clean water, clean toilets and a learning environment for infants, toddlers
and pre-schoolers. They also provide similar services for expectant and nursing mothers. According
to government figures, anganwadis reach about 58.1 million children and 10.23 million pregnant or
lactating women.
Anganwadis are India's primary tool against the scourges of child malnourishment, infant mortality
and curbing preventable diseases such as polio. While infant mortality has declined in recent years,
India has the world's largest population of malnourished or under-nourished children. It is estimated
that about 47% of children aged 03 are under-nourished per international standards.
6Ajay Pandeys article, MARYLAND JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, VOL. 26, page117.
7Family Welfare: ASHA & Anganwadi Centers, Health.( http://india.gov.in/citizen/health/asha.php;last visited
13/9/2011,4pm)
8Ibid,1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Child_Development_Serviceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Child_Development_Serviceshttp://india.gov.in/citizen/health/health.phphttp://india.gov.in/citizen/health/health.phphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Child_Development_Serviceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Child_Development_Serviceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India -
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Children from poor (Below Poverty Line) families, especially those from Scheduled castes and
scheduled tribes, are considered most at-risk. Anganwadi means courtyard. Under the Integrated
Child Development Scheme, one Anganwadi worker is allotted to a population of 1000. An
Anganwadi worker is trained in various aspects of health, nutrition and child development.
The duties of Anganwadi worker are broadly - Regular health check-up. Immunization. Health
education. Non-formal pre-school education.
The Role and responsibilities of Anganwadi workers-
To elicit community support and participation in running the programme.
To carry out a quick survey of all the families, especially mothers and children in those families
in their respective area of work once in a year.
To organise non-formal pre-school activities in the Anganwadi of children in the age group 3-6
years of age and to help in designing and making of toys and play equipment of indigenous origin
for use in Anganwadi. To organise supplementary nutrition feeding for children (0-6 years) and expectant and nursing
mothers by planning the menu based on locally available food and local recipes.
To provide health and nutrition education and counseling on breastfeeding/ Infant & young
feeding practices to mothers. Anganwadi Workers, being close to the local community, can
motivate married women to adopt family planning/birth control measures
To make home visits for educating parents to enable mothers to plan an effective role in the
child's growth and development with special emphasis on new born child.
To assist the PHC staff in the implementation of health component of the programme viz.
immunization, health check-up, ante natal and post natal check etc.
To maintain liaison with other institutions (Mahila Mandals) and involve lady school teachers and
girls of the primary/middle schools in the village which have relevance to her functions.
To guide Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) engaged under National Rural Health
Mission in the delivery of health care services and maintenance of records under the ICDS
Scheme.
AWW would also assist in implementation of Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls
(NPAG) as per the guidelines of the Scheme and maintain such record as prescribed under the
NPAG.
To identify the disability among children during her home visits and refer the case immediately to
the nearest PHC or District Disability Rehabilitation Centre. Apart from the above even they are entitled to these activities every day:
To cook and serve the food to children and marchers
To clean the Anganwadi premises daily and fetching water.
Cleanliness of small children.
To bring small children collecting from the village to the Anganwadi.9
9For more details about the roles of Anganwadi workers , http://wcd.nic.in/icdsimg/RoleresponseAWWs.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_castes_and_scheduled_tribeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_castes_and_scheduled_tribeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_castes_and_scheduled_tribeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_castes_and_scheduled_tribes