icds in west bengal and bihar - pratichi (india) trust child...1.a. icds in india, west bengal and...

The Pratichi Child Report II

ICDS in West Bengal and Bihar

FOREWORD

Amartya Sen

Pratichi Institute, Kolkataand

Asian Development Research Institute, Patna

2015

The Pratcihi Child Report II: ICDS in West Bengal and BiharA study by Pratichi Institute, Kolkata andAsian Development Research Institute, Patna

First Published: February 2015

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The Team

West Bengal

Pia Sen, Toa Bagchi, Mukhlesur Rahaman Gain, Joyeeta Dey,Manabesh Sarkar, Sangram Mukherjee, Subhra Das,

Susmita Bandyopadhyay, Swagata Nandi, Subhra Bhattacharya,Piyali Pal, Priyanka Ghosh, Dilip Ghosh,

Kumar Rana, Manabi Majumdar.

Bihar

P. P Ghosh, Shivnath Prasad Yadav, Shashi Ranjan Kumar,Shriniwas, Md. Tasmimul Haque, Dilip Kumar Pandey,

Rajesh Kumar, Sushil Kumar, and Syed Mashkoor Hassan.

Logistical Support

Saumik Mukherjee, Sumanta Paul,Piuli Chakraborty and Mrinal Mondol

Contents

PageList of Abbreviations 7

List of Tables and Figures 8

Foreword 9

Preface 11

Glimpses of the Report 13

1. Introduction 211.a. ICDS in India, West Bengal and Bihar: an overview 21

1.a.1. Expansion in Coverage 23

1.b. The Field inquiry: Methodological Approach and Study Area 30

1.b.1. Methodology 30

1.b.2. District Profile 31

2. Ground level preparedness for the delivery of ICDS 372.a. Infrastructural readiness 37

2.a.1. Building 37

2.a.2. Drinking Water 40

a.3. Kitchens 41

2.a.4. Toilets 42

2.a.5. Electricity 43

2.a.6. Safety 43

2.a.7. Miscellaneous Indicators 43

2.b. Human resource provisions 44

2.c. Supervision and Monitoring 46

3. Ground level functioning of the ICDSs 493.a. Working time 49

3.b. Service Delivery 50

3.b.1. Supplementary Nutrition Programme 50

3.b.2. Pre-School Education 61

3.b.3. Health Services 65

3.b.4. Nutrition & Health Education 69

4. ICDS: Urban Scenario 75

5. Scope and Challenges 79

Appendices 83

Acknowledgement

Amartya Sen

Jean Drèze

Antara Dev Sen

Saibal Gupta

Dinesh Bhat

Manoj Dey

Department of Women and Child Development,Government of West Bengal

Department of Women and Child Development,Government of Bihar

Field Researchers

DPOs, CDPOs, Supervisors, AWWs, AWHs and allour respondents

List of Abbreviations

ICDS: Integrated Child Development Services

AWC: Anganwadi Center

AWW: Anganwadi Worker

NFHS: National family Health Survey

SNP: Supplementary Nutrition Programme

PSE: Pre-School Education

FAO: Food and Agriculture Organisation

GHI: Global Hunger Index

ISHI: India State Hunger Index

ECSC: Essential Commodity Supply Corporation

SC: Scheduled Caste

ST: Scheduled Tribe

CDPO: Child Development Project Officer

ACDPO: Assistant Child Development Project Officer

DPO: District Project Officer

ECCE: Early childhood care and education

CAG: Comptroller and Auditor General

ANM: Auxiliary Nurse/Midwife

ASHA: Accredited Social Health Activist

NHE: Nutrition and Health Education

VHND: Village Health and Nutrition Days

List of Tables and Figures

Tables:

Table 1: Status of ICDSTable 2: AWCs – Categorized by functionalityTable 3: Existing and Revised Population Norms under ICDS SchemeTable 4: ICDS coverage: West Bengal and BiharTable 5: Gap in actual number of AWCs in BiharTable 6A: Infrastructural Status of the AWCs in Study Areas of West BengalTable 6B: Infrastructural Status of the AWCs in Study Areas of BiharTable 7: Alternative arrangement if own building is not availableTable 8: Number of AWCs possessing their own pucca building in West BengalTable 9: Alternative Sources of Drinking WaterTable 10: Alternative Cooking Arrangements in West Bengal and BiharTable 11: Percentage of vacant positionsTable 12: Food Supply Regularity in West Bengal and Bihar Responses of AWWs’Table 13: Profile of the villages of West Bengal with poor food supplyTable 14: Regularity of SNP reception: Responses of mothers of West Bengal

and BiharTable 15: Place of Eating for ChildrenTable 16 A: Vegetable budget of Murshidabad (Char labongola 2 AWC,

Bhagwangola -1) and BardhamanTable 16 B: Egg budget of Murshidabad (Charlabongola 2 AWC,

Bhagwangola -1) and BardhamanTable 16 C: Soyabean budget of Murshidabad (Char labongola 2

AWC, Bhagwangola -1) and BardhamanTable 17: Neglect of Pre-school EducationTable 18: Extent of Pre-school Education (Anganwadis)Table 19: Medicine Supply in Selected AWCs in Bihar

Charts:Chart 1: Nutritional Status of Children under 3years in India

(according to NFHS)Chart 2: Progress of ICDS Projects in India (Operational)Chart 3: Growth of AWCs in India (Operational)Chart 4: Operational AWCs: West Bengal and BiharChart 5: Average working hours of AWCs – A ComparisonChart 6: Reason behind Irregular supply of ingredients in Bihar

Box 1: West Bengal: A ProfileBox 2: Bihar: A Profile

Foreword

Amartya Sen

This is our second child report, based on work done jointlywith Asian Development Research Institute in Patna. The PratichiInstitute is happy to present to the public our findings on childdevelopment under ICDS in West Bengal and Bihar. There issome good news, and some bad – indeed sad – findings aswell.

The number of operational ICDS centres has expanded fastin both the states since 2006. The growth has been faster inWest Bengal, but the progress in Bihar, despite its stop-go nature,has been impressive.

There are, however, serious deficiencies in the workperformance of the ICDS centres. The inadequacy ofinfrastructure remains a big problem: for example 45 per centof the West Bengal centres and 80 per cent of the centres inBihar do not have toilets. In West Bengal one-third of the centresdo not have their own buildings, and the proportion of centreswithout buildings is two-thirds in Bihar. About half the centresdo not have access to safe drinking water in West Bengal, andthe proportion is only a little less in Bihar.

There are many other problems also which our reportdiscusses, based on our investigation. There is a summary at thebeginning, but the details, with the relevant tables, can be foundin the body of the report. It is hard to dispute the growingunderstanding in the world that a nation’s well-being and successdepend greatly on how well the children are served in terms ofbasic care, including nutrition, health and education. The gaps inwhat are provided in the centres are, thus, matters of concern.The problems to be addressed both involve funding requirements

and better functioning arrangements and working conditions.Remedies are not hard to anticipate, and the barrier would bemostly in problems of financing and implementation.

Despite the deficiencies in what the centres can offer, it is amatter of some importance that the ICDS coverage has greatlyexpanded. With that coverage has come a move towards seeingthese essential social services to be among the rights of thechildren, rather than taking them to be benefactions bestowedon them at the pleasure of the authorities. There is a lot towelcome in that attitudinal development, even though muchwork remains yet to be done.

I end by expressing my appreciation of the leadership ofManabi Majumdar and Kumar Rana in carrying out thisinvestigation, and to the rest of “The Team” for their part in thiswork, done with efficiency and skill.

10 THE PRATICHI CHILD REPORT II

Preface

‘Children are the foundations of mankind’, asserted the Buddha.And, it is a truism worth repeating that the vigour of a democraticsystem crucially depends on the quality of life it ensures for itsfuture citizens, that is to say, for its children. How well Indiandemocracy fares in this respect remains a peripheral question inpublic and policy debates, notwithstanding the fact that severalinitiatives have been undertaken in recent times to expand andimprove educational and nutritional opportunities for all childrenin the country. In particular, the everyday, quotidian practicesthat surround the implementation of these ‘lofty’ schemes, andthe promises and perils they entail receive scanty attention inresearch and public discussion, resulting in inadequate remedialaction. Perhaps, the neglect of our children is best reflected inthe latest census records (2011) where 430,785 children of age 5returned themselves as ‘workers’ – engaged in ‘earning’. Whatcan be more shameful than this that children who were supposedto grow under fuller state and societal care were left to fend forthemselves and their families? What could be more worryingthan the fact that 5 percent of the country’s total workforce isconstituted by children of 5-17 age group?

Of course, the picture of childhood care and developmentdoes not remain the same across the regions of this continent-like country, consisting of country-like States. Thanks to effectivecollective efforts, in some parts of the country early years ofchildhood are made more secure and less uneven across socialgroups than what obtains in other parts of the same nationaluniverse. In its research pursuits Pratichi (India) Trust strives tomake use of this comparative prism in order to probe whatenables children from indigent families to access basic nutritionalcare and education in some regions of the country but disablesthem from doing so elsewhere. The first Pratichi Child Report

was published in 2008. Revisiting the insights presented in thatreport and extending those further through inter-State and intra-State comparisons, the present study offers an analysis of theextent to which the Integrated Child Development Services(ICDS) has made a difference to the lives of the children inBihar and West Bengal and more importantly of the considerableground that still needs to be covered. That there are reasons tobe both hopeful about the potential of this public initiative aswell as constructively critical about its gross underperformanceis the central argument that this report presents before the publicsuch that urgent and appropriate public action follows. Bihar and Bengal in particular and India in general have reasonto be proud of being the lands where the Buddha practised hisphilosophical realisations. But, it is more important to guide thispride towards making some real efforts to recover the Buddhafrom oblivion – in all effective sense. Paying attention to thechildren can be a real tribute not only to the Buddha but also toour democracy.

February 2015 Manabi Majumdar

Kumar Rana


The Delivery of ICDS inWest Bengal and Bihar

Glimpses of the Report

This study on the delivery of Integrated Child DevelopmentServices (ICDS) in West Bengal and Bihar has been carried outby the Pratichi Institute in collaboration with Asian DevelopmentResearch Institute (ADRI), Patna. The ICDS program is the largestchild development programme in the world involving a numberof services aimed at improving the nutritional status of children;and pregnant and lactating mothers. It provides for the deliveryof early childhood education (ECE), referral services to hospitals,care of adolescent girls and other crucial interventions that haveboth direct and indirect bearing on peoples’ health. Thisrecognition led the Pratichi Research Team in 2006 to carry outa study on the delivery of ICDS in West Bengal which resultedin The Pratichi Child Report (Pratichi Trust, The Pratichi ChildReport, Number I, Kolkata and Delhi, 2008). The publication ofthis report activated public debate and discussions in the stateregarding the neglect of children in general and those fromunderprivileged backgrounds in particular. Issues pertaining tothe wellbeing of children are rampantly ignored by the mediaand the report contributed to rectifying this trend. The report has been prepared from the data collected fromrural areas in six districts of West Bengal (Bankura, Bardhaman,Murshidabad, South 24 Parganas, Dakshin Dinajpur andJalpaiguri) and five districts of Bihar (Gopalgunj, Madhubani,Bhagalpur, Katihar and Bhojpur). The West Bengal study involvedrevisiting the locations selected for the Child Report (2008) and


for the Bihar study the villages selected were part of an earlierstudy on the Delivery of Elementary Education in Bihar carriedout by Pratichi Institute and ADRI.

The data on 22 and 30 Anganwadis in West Bengal and Biharrespectively is drawn from observations, questionnaire basedresponses and open-ended discussions with:

a. 22 and 30 Anganwadi workers and as many AnganwadiHelpers in West Bengal and Bihar respectively.

b. 153 and 157 mothers in West Bengal and Biharrespectively

c. 10 Child Development Project Officers (CDPOs) ineach of the states.

Major findings: Improvements and Gaps

Improvement in expansion resulting in some qualitative improvementPublic agitation and the subsequent Supreme Court order resultedin substantial improvement in the reach of the programme. Thenumber of operational ICDS centers has increased from 748229in 2006 to 1342146 in 2014 – the rate of increase being 79 percent. In West Bengal the number of centers increased from 54961in 2006 to 116390 in 2014, with a gross increase of 112 per cent.However, in Bihar the rate of expansion (59 per cent) was foundto be somewhat slow – from 57767 in 2006 to 91677 in 2014.Unfortunately, although Bihar picked up well in 2006, the growthof ICDS centers came to a complete halt in 2008, only to resumewith a slow pace in 2010.

Though inadequate, improvement in budget allocation hashad significant impact on the delivery of the programme. Forexample, while the food served in most of ICDS centers ofBengal that we had visited in 2006-07 was inedible, in 2014 thequality of food appeared to have improved substantially. Absenceof baseline data restricts any longitudinal analysis of Bihar,however, according to respondents, there has been animprovement in Bihar too.

Similarly, there has been an increase in the delivery of pre-school education. While in our earlier study we had found thisservice to be almost non-functional, the present study in WestBengal has found improvement, though, it still does not meet thelevel desired by mothers. The same holds true for Bihar.

ICDS in West Bengal and Bihar 15

What has contributed to ICDS taking off in rural areas is asocietal churning driven by the expansion of the programme:we had found in our earlier study that the Mid-day Meal in theprimary schools gave the mothers some tangible basis forcomparing the food served in the ICDS centers and led to theirvoicing their dissatisfaction over the supplementary nutritionprogramme (SNP). With the growing reach of the programme– with almost all hamlets having access to a functional ICDScenter – the rights-centric approach was found to be graduallygaining ground. Also, the visibility of the centers has given abasis of inter-locality comparison of the functionality of thecenters. In other words, the physical presence of the centers,with improved structures and supplies, has not only added tothe actual functionality of the centers, but has also catalyzed publicdiscussions at the grass root levels and even other echelons ofsociety. Gaps in Functioning

Distributional problemsDespite rapid progress in the expansion of the centers in WestBengal, our primary survey results reveal some majordistributional problems: for example, though the averagepopulation served by the sampled centers (636) was well withinthe norm (400-800), there were three centers which had to caterto more than 1000 people – much higher than the stipulated ratio.

In Bihar, the problem was much more acute: while the averagepopulation served by the centers visited was 1205 –itself muchhigher than the norm – the numbers served by each center rangedfrom 11 to 2213. Only two of the 30 centers visited in Biharwere found to be compliant with the state imperative.

In many places the locaa major constraint for thFor example, in West Bengathe distance of the centers ffailure to attend. Bihar, wita worse problem of inacces

tion of center was reported to be e children to access the services. l, 12 percent of the mothers citedrom their home as their reason for h its acute dearth of centers, had sibility.


Infrastructural inadequacyAlthough, the increase in number of centers has seen simultaneousimprovement in the physical provisions of the centers, the gapsin infrastructure were found rticularly in Bihar.A little above two third (68visited in West Bengal hadcorresponding figure was dwhile toilets were availableBengal, in Bihar the correscent. Nevertheless, Bihar terms of availability of saWest Bengal 50 per cent ) West Bengal: 46 per cent).number of the centers werewall (West Bengal: 18 per c

The physical appearanprovisions had had their beaA center running in a cattlepractical problems in cookineducation (PSE) but also aThese centers were viewed afor the lowest rungs of sochad its influence on the fuwho had a voice in society their destiny.

Apart from shortage osuffered from several maJalpaiguri district of West Bfunctional weighing machi

Constraints of budget and suppBudget allocation for suppbe insufficient. This was corthat with the allotted monfor under nourished childlactating mothers was Rs 5provided with less than hallotted for vegetables coueach child every day.

Supply of rice and dis

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low (33 per cent). Similarly, cent of the centers in Westfigure was a meagre 20 pere ahead of West Bengal ing water (Bihar 57 per cent, en shed (Bihar: 63 per cent,the states, only a miniscule be protected by a boundaryr: 10 per cent).e centers and other basice functionality of the centers.nder the sky not only faced items, conducting preschoolblem of social devaluation.le-distributing points meantartial attendance, as a result, of the centers: with thoseay, they left the voiceless to

g most of the Anganwadisiciencies. For example, insingle center visited had any

y nutrition was reported to by a calculation that showedor each ‘normal’ child; rates 6, and for pregnant and

) each ‘normal’ child can ben egg every day. The sum

nly 14 grams of potato for

t of funds in West Bengal


was found to be more or less regular; but there appeared to besignificant inter-district variations: while the average degree ofirregularity was only 18 per cent, in Bankura it was reported tobe 50 per cent. In Bihar this problem was rampant – only 54 percent of the Anganawadis reported to receiving a regular supply.And while the supply in Bhagalpur (100 per cent) and Madhubani(80 per cent) was regular, in Katihar (17 per cent) and Bhojpur(20 per cent) it was deplorable. The problem was partially dueto a complicated system of transferring a fixed amount of Rs16225/- for every center irrespective of their strength. Also, whenthe money exceeded the requirement it was to be returned to thedepartment, but in case of shortage no fresh allocations weremade. Insufficient Human resourceThe inadequacy of human resources required for running theprogramme added to the existing infrastructural problems. Asseen in departmental statistics, while at the country wide levelnearly 5 per cent of the Anganwadis have no workers at all, inWest Bengal this figure was even higher (8 per cent); Bihar,however, has been doing better with no post of AWW lyingvacant.

Similarly while at the all India level 7 per cent of the posts of Anganwadi Helpers was vacant, in West Bengal the correspon-ing figure was nearly 14 per cent. Again, Bihar seemed to have fared better with only 0.3 per cent posts lying vacant.

The Child Development Project Officers (CDPOs) are theproject level planners and overseers, without whom the operationof the project is bound to falter. Despite their crucial role in theprogramme, at the all India level nearly one third (31 per cent)of the posts of CDPOs were vacant and in West Bengal thedeficiency was as high as 56 per cent. Bihar, again, showed agreater commitment with no post of CDPOs remaining vacant. At the tertiary level, the problem was even more acute: while theof deficit of supervisors was 30 per cent at the national level, inWest Bengal and Bihar the deficit appeared to be 56 per centand 48 per cent respectively.

Feeble Supervision and MonitoringPoor staffing, particularly at project and sub-project level, hadhad its impact on the overall supervision and monitoring


mechanism. Many of the Anganawadis under survey were notvisited by any higher level authority for months and in somecases for years. In West Bengal, some supervisors had 100 ICDScenters to take care of: ‘tell us, even if we work for all the 30days of the month, will it be possible for us to make a repeatvisit to a center before three months?,’ complained a supervisorof West Bengal. Many of the CDPOs of West Bengal were incharge of more than one project: ‘even the most dedicated soulwould fail to make a revisit to a center within 18 months’, aCDPO claimed.

The absence of any effective mechanism for local level socialaudit, involving mothers and other local people in the operationof the programme, made things worse. Mothers clearly statedthat they were eager to join to improve the functioning of thecenters, but they were never invited.

In Bihar, shortage of supervisors on the one hand and thelegacy of non-governance on the other seemed to haveoutweighed the positive moves of filling up the posts of CDPOsand staff at Anganwadi level. The programme was yet to beestablished as an ensured entitlement of the people; the degreeof information about the programme, its components andoperation, was low or absent. Many people we had interactedwith took this to be government largesse.

Functional weaknessesThe attitude of the top level policy makers and implementerswas seen to have percolated down to the grass root level: mostof the centers in West Bengal, as reported by the mothers, ranfor two hours, though the AWWs claimed it was much higher– 4 hours.

One of the inherent problems of ICDS is its perception as aprogramme for poor children. A lot of improvement in thisdirection – to make people see the programme as a combinationof various activities including pre-school education, referralservices – needs to be achieved. As we gather from the WestBengal experience, a little more effort can make this feasible:in 2006-07 almost all the centers were found to be faltering inthe delivery of pre-school education but by 2014 some progresswas seen. Bihar is yet to pick up: even more than 50 per cent ofthe Anganwadi workers reported that they did not carry out any


pre-school education. Their level of understanding regarding childdevelopment needs to be enhanced considerably. Also, thereappeared a high degree of class and caste bias deterring theprogramme: the study found a strong correlation between thedemographic composition of certain areas with the functionalityof the centers – performance of centers located in areas inhabitedby tribal and low caste Hindus was much poorer than what wasfound in other areas.

While some of the Anganwadi workers were found to bevery committed, (and their dedication resulted not only in thebetter performance of the centers but also played a role beyondthe centers in health delivery, running of the primary schools,etc.) some were found to be dismally unproductive. Whileindividual inclination did shape the individual performances, anequipped system, fully alert to the gaps and prepared toeliminate the gaps could certainly make things positively different.The alertness of the system does not only come from the top:room for the bottom level participants must be created. This,however, does not in any way reduce the importance of ensuringthe material requirements- including CDPOs, Supervisors,Anganwadi Workers and Helpers, and regular supply ofnecessary provisions through – a re-cast budget.

In brief, public commitment towards our children needs tobe raised; poor allocation is just one manifestation of the neglectand fixing the problem requires re-conditioning of several aspectssuch as budget-allocation and public reasoning forms the basefor such changes to happen. That a meagre 4 per cent of thetotal annual budget of the union government is allocated forchildren is certainly a major constraint, but the bigger problemperhaps lies in the fact that this neglect reflected in the budgetoften remains unnoticed and goes without any protest andresistance in the public domain. The parliament is quiet on theissues of children; the media finds no sensation in the generaland deep rooted neglect of the children and only raises its voiceat the occurrence of child deaths owing to food poisoning oraccidents in school; and the public at large remains blindfoldedtowards the future citizens and the nation. The situation is difficult,but there is no road ahead apart from stepping up to thechallenge.

Chapter 1Introduction

1.a. ICDS in India, West Bengal and Bihar: An OverviewThe severe contradictions in India’s growth story are most visiblewhen we look at the nation’s child nutritional status. On onehand we as a nation have scaled great heights, sent an exemplarymission to mars and achieved a commendable national income,while on the other hand, 40 per cent of India’s children are victimsof undernourishment.

India’s nutritional standards have remained persistentlyappalling despite certain achievements. The children are mostlyleft to their own devices till the age of six – which is when theystart going to school. However, it needs to be remembered thatthe initial six years (especially the first two) are the most crucialand formative in a child’s life since it is at this stage that thefoundations of cognitive, physical and emotional developmentare laid. Centrally important state initiated care at this stageappeared to be abysmally weak.

However, though delayed, understanding did eventuallydawn upon our policy-makers that resulted in the launching ofthe Integrated Child Development Services (hereafter ICDS) in1975, the only major national programme that addresses theneeds of children under six. The scheme initially startedfunctioning in 33 development blocks and a few urban areas inIndia. Currently regarded as the world’s largest community-based child development programme, it aims at the holisticdevelopment of children below the age of six, expectant andnursing mothers and adolescent girls. This involves providing apackage of services comprising supplementary nutrition,immunization, health check-ups, referral services, pre-schooleducation (hereafter PSE) and nutrition and health education(hereafter NHE). In addition, mothers, children and adolescent


girls are provided with iron, folic acid, and vitamin A tablets tocombat iron deficiency and anaemia.The delivery of the ICDS objectives, though, still suffers fromthe myriad problems of poor implementation and absence ofeffective and timely monitoring and supervision. In a countrywhere child issues form barely 4.64 per cent of the nationalbudget1, one can well imagine the health of child-centricprogrammes and schemes. For example, in 1998-99, 43 per centof children under three were underweight and by the end ofanother six years, the National Family Health Survey (hereafterNFHS)-3 reported a decrease of only three percentage points inthe status of underweight children.2

Chart 1: Nutritional Status of Children under 3 years in India (according to NFHS)

Chart 1 shows the condition of child nutrition in India as perNFHS data. While the stunting rates seem to have reduced, therate of improvement for underweight children has been extremelyslow, with the child wasting rates actually witnessing an increaseof three percentage points. In 2014, the NFHS-3 conducted in2005-06 is the most recent and comprehensive survey on healthand nutrition. There has been no other reliable nationwide surveyon the nutritional situation since and ironically our national mediahas also given negligible space to these issues (signalling that health

Source: International Institute of Population Sciences, National Family Health Survey 2,India, Vol:1, Mumbai, 1999 and International Institute of Population Sciences,

National Family Health Survey 3, India, Vol:1, Mumbai, 2007)


and nutrition are not important subjects for public discussion).Parliamentary debates are also no exception to this trend wherechildren have rarely managed to emerge as matters worthy ofdiscussion.3 This neglect is truly inexplicable in light of the factssuch as every 5th child in the world being from India and thenation having a child population of approximately 40 per cent4

and can only stem from an ignorance stubbornly retained by thestate. The dominant currents of indifference notwithstanding,there are counter-currents of dialogues, initiatives and actions inthe layers of society that strive to generate pressure for policymakers to come up with more appropriate and adequateremedial measures. The Pratichi Child Report in 2008 made anattempt to initiate public discourse on the situation of the ICDSprogramme in West Bengal. Being the first of its kind, this publicreport created quite a stir in certain quarters of West Bengalsociety.

1.a.1Expansion in CoverageIn spite of the dismal nutritional standards in our country, it isalso true that there have been areas of development in the ICDSdelivery, the most striking being in the domain of expansion in

Chart 2: Progress of ICDS Projects in India (Operational)

Source: http://wcd.nic.in/icdsdatatables.htm, Ministry of Women and Child Development, GOI


coverage. The Supreme Court of India on November 28th, 2001directed the government to ensure that every settlement has afunctional Anganwadi Center (hereafter AWC), and that ICDSis extended to all children under six, pregnant and lactatingwomen, and adolescent girls. This order was reinforced andextended on April 29th and October 7th, 2004, along with furtherdirections regarding ICDS. The latest Supreme Court order onICDS, dated December 13th, 2006, goes further to say that anAWC should be created “on demand”, within three months insettlements where there are at least 40 children under six years ofage. Since then, there has been visible expansion in ICDScoverage. Starting as a pilot project in just 33 blocks, today it isoperational with around seven thousand projects and over13,00,000 AWCs all over the nation.

Thus, the Supreme Court directives contributed substantiallyto expansion in coverage of the ICDS programme. The numberof ICDS projects has increased by a striking 25 per cent in theentire country in the last eight years. A similar trend can beobserved in the record growth of 79 per cent in the number ofAWCs in a span of eight years – which is certainly a laudableperformance. The years immediately following the court orders

Chart 3: Growth of AWCs in India (Operational)

Source: http://wcd.nic.in/icdsdatatables.htm;Ministry of Women and Child Development, GOI


witnessed an accelerated pace of progress unmatched bysubsequent years. For example, the ICDS projects increased at arate of 19 per cent within a span of four years from 2006-2010and the centers showed an increase of 40 per cent within thesame time frame. The increased supply gradually petered outand the rapidity of development understandably slowed downover time.

Table 1: Status of ICDS

Source: Status Report of ICDS, 2014, Ministry of Women and Child Development, GOI

Chart 4: Operational AWCs: West Bengal and Bihar

An attempt has been made to explain the current status of theprogramme in both the sampled states by placing it against thenational average in table 1 and chart 4. It can be clearly seen thatthe pace of functioning of the ICDS programme in Bihar hasbeen substantially slower in comparison to that of West Bengal.While West Bengal recorded a gross increase of 112 per centbetween 2006 and 2014, the rate of expansion for Bihar was



only 59 per cent. It is also worth noting that eight years ago, therewas not much difference between the numbers of operationalcenters in the two states with a mere gap of about 5 per cent. Infact, Bihar actually recorded more functioning centers in 2006than West Bengal. Yet, in 2014, Bihar, which has a greaterpopulation than West Bengal5, lags behind by 20 per cent. Interms of functioning, Bihar had six per cent fewer operationalprojects than West Bengal. The state had picked up well in 2006,but the growth of the centers came to an abrupt halt in 2008only to resume in 2010 with an extremely slow pace.

On average, 193 children were found to receive nutritionalservices from each center in Bihar. Table 1 illustrates that ICDSin Bihar renders services to more children and women incomparison to West Bengal with a limited number of operatingcenters which has resulted in overburdening of the centers. Hereit needs to be taken into consideration that in the data providedby the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Governmentof India, there exists an extra category of ‘AWCs providingservice’ in addition to the state’s usual segmentation of ‘sanctionedcenters’, ‘operational centers’ and ‘reporting centers’6 and thisparticular average has been calculated on the basis of the ‘AWCsproviding service’. Even if the usual segmentation is followedand the average is calculated by taking into consideration thereporting centers, the average remains as high as 120 childrenper center, much above the national average of 67.7.

Thus, while West Bengal has accomplished expansion in thereach of the programme by a significant amount by 2010, Biharstill has a long way to go though it has lately picked up somepace with a 14 percent rate of growth between 2010 and 2014.While this is indeed encouraging, one cannot ignore the sheerneglect the programme received in first half of this decade.

Table 2: AWCs: Categorized by functionality

Source: Status Report of ICDS, 2014, Ministry of Women and Child Development, GOI)(Average calculated on basis of AWCs providing service


The primary issue that emerges out of this discussion is thedearth of centers and the consequent burden and neglect thatcomes with this insufficiency. In other words it is a clear supplyside problem as opposed a demand fuelled one.

According to the national norm, there should be an AWCper 800 population. Though the current picture does not seemexemplary, West Bengal has made significant progress with respectto average population served by each AWC. From our surveydata, we learn that for all the sampled AWCs taken together,average population served by them is 636 (table 4), which iswell within the norm. However, there are certain large hamletswhere the population catered exceeds 1000, though this has beenobserved in only 3 hamlets. Six years ago, the Pratichi ChildReport (2008) found the average population served by thesecenters to be 1200 (approx.) – which is exactly twice of thatcaptured by our present survey.

Table 3: Existing and Revised Population Norms under ICDS Scheme

Source: Planning Commission, Evaluation Report onIntegrated Child Development Services (ICDS) 2011


The survey results for Bihar, on the other hand, are particularlydiscouraging – with an average population of 1205 being servedby our sampled AWCs. As per the national norm this populationshould have been served by three centers, not one. In the absenceof a comparable baseline data, it is not possible to track thedevelopment over the years, but the detailed discussion providedabove suggests that there have been enormous barriers toexpansion of the ICDS programme in Bihar.

Table 4: ICDS coverage: West Bengal and Bihar

Source: Field Data

Continuing with the discussion on coverage, table 4 illustratesthat 93 per cent of the sampled centers of Bihar have exceededthe national norm population with just two of them somehowperforming according to the norm. The state also has a widevariation in its coverage. For example, our sampled centers re-corded coverage of 11 to 2216 populations per center in thevisited villages. Thus, the system shows an absurdly uneven treat-ment of the different ICDS centers of the state. A simple gapanalysis of the sampled centers of Bihar will help in portrayingthe situation with greater clarity.

Table 5: Gap in actual number of AWCs in Bihar

Source: Field Data

Table 5 shows that in Bihar, for a sampled population ofaround 30,000, there are only 30 AWCs present. Going by the


national norm of an AWC to be established for every 800population there is a deficiency of twelve AWCs – amountingto a gap of 29 per cent in these locations. Thus, 30 AWCs areactually providing services that should have been rendered by42 of them, and consequently, one can well imagine the qualityof services. Field interactions with mothers even revealed thatthe centers remain closed most of the time with no informationon when it would open, making it difficult for them to sendtheir children to the centers.

West Bengal, on the other hand, has a different story to tell.In comparison to Bihar, the state does have healthier indices andsurvey data also brings forth significant success stories. Howeveron closer inspection West Bengal’s data appears less reassuring.From calculations based on 2011 census data for West Bengal, itappears that the state has a surplus of 23 per cent AWCs.7However, our primary survey in the nine ICDS project areas ofthe state revealed that there remains a deficit of approximately12 per cent8 each, both in case of ‘sanctioned’ and ‘operational’AWCs. This is because in each of these areas there is an increasein demand for new AWC’s and in some places this demandexceeds the sanctioned figure. But there are locations, whereinthis sanctioned figure is insufficient and demand for more centersis a persisting concern. Therefore, an urgent modification in thenumber of the existing “sanctioned centers” needs to be donekeeping in mind the extremely important practical factors likedistance.

In many of the centers visited during our survey, mothersreported to not being able to send their child to the AWCs dueto the center being located at the farthest corner of the village.For some villages, we found a class angle to this issue. For examplein Subarnamrigi village of Murshidabad district, West Bengal, theICDS center was located at the start of the hamlet – the areainhabited by people belonging to higher socio-economic classes.The village gets divided in two parts by a canal and on the otherside of the canal, which is farthest from the AWC’s presentlocation, where people of lower socio-economic status[scheduled caste (hereafter SC) and scheduled tribe (hereafterST)] reside. This gives an angle of social exclusion to the entireanalyses – public delivery services are primarily concentrated inareas dominated by the powerful, and neglected in the socio-


economically backward or the selectively unheard groups. Suchcaste- based exclusion in ICDS delivery has also been observedin other states and is hence not limited to the sampled states.9

1.b. Field Inquiry: Methodological Approach and Study Area

1.b.1.MethodologyThis report has been prepared using data collected from ruralareas in six districts of West Bengal (Bankura, Bardhaman,Murshidabad, South 24 Parganas, Dakshin Dinajpur andJalpaiguri) and five districts of Bihar (Gopalgunj, Madhubani,Bhagalpur, Katihar and Bhojpur). The West Bengal study involvedrevisiting the locations selected for the Child Report (2008), andfor Bihar the villages selected were part of an earlier study onthe delivery of Elementary Education carried out by the PratichiInstitute and ADRI.10 Although for the West Bengal study(following the same samples as in the 2006-07 study) data wascollected from both rural and urban areas, in order to draw acomparison with Bihar we have considered only the rural dataas the Bihar sample is entirely from rural areas. In an additionalsection at the end of the report we have provided a briefoverview of ICDS delivery in urban West Bengal based mainlyon anecdotal evidence.The data on 22 and 30 AWCs in West Bengal and Biharrespectively, is drawn from: observations, questionnaire basedresponses, and open-ended discussions with:

a. 22 and 30 AWC workers and as many AWC Helpersin West Bengal and Bihar respectively;

b. 153 and 157 mothers in West Bengal and Biharrespectively;

c. 10 Child Development Project Officers (hereafterCDPOs) in each of the two states.

The relatively small sample size (22 AWCs in west Bengal and 30AWCs in Bihar) is reflective of a trend Pratichi Reports tend tofollow so as to enable an in depth capturing of ground leveldynamics which is often seen to be lacking in large quantitativesurveys. In the report we have used percentages which need tobe understood keeping in mind the size of the sample.


1.b.2.District ProfileIn this section a brief overview of some of the basic indicatorsand social, geographical descriptors of the selected districts ofthe two sampled states are provided.

West Bengal

Box 1: West Bengal: A Profile

Jalpaiguri district occupies only 7.0 per cent of the totalarea of West Bengal. It has a total population of 3872846 ofwhich approximately 72.6 per cent is rural, 37.7 per cent SC,18.9 per cent ST and 10.9 per cent Muslim. It is located in thesub-Himalayan region and is famous for its tea gardens. TheBritish started tea gardens in this region, and brought labourersfrom southern Bengal (Bankura, Purulia), and Chhotanagpur andSanthal Pargana of present Jharkhand (erstwhile Bihar). Manyof these tea gardens closed down in the recent past, causingsevere unemployment and poverty leading to even reports ofdeaths due to starvation.

Dakshin Dinajpur was formed on 1st April, 1992, afterthe bifurcation of the erstwhile district of Paschim Dinajpurinto Dakshin and Uttar Dinajpur. With only 2.5 per cent of thetotal land area of West Bengal, Dakshin Dinajpur is a small borderdistrict in the northern part of West Bengal. Located on the leftbank of Padma, the main economic activity of this district isagriculture and allied activities. The total population of the districtis 1676276 of which 85.9 per cent is rural, 28.8 per cent SC,16.4 per cent ST and 24 per cent Muslims. It is one of the most

Source: *Census of India 2011, #Census of India 2001


backward districts in the state in terms of human developmentindicators.

Murshidabad had been the capital of undivided Bengalbefore it fell to the British in 1757. Currently the district occupies5.9 per cent of the total area of the State. Presently it has a totalpopulation of 7103807 of which approximately 80.3 per cent isrural and 63.7 per cent Muslims. The river Padma marks theboundary between India and Bangladesh. Apart from highdependence on agriculture, a large number of workers fromMurshidabad migrate out to different parts of the country insearch of manual work. Household industries, such as bidi rolling,form another large area of casual employment that mainlyinvolves women and children.Bardhaman is located in the central part of the state. It is thenerve center of agriculture of the state. This district was rich incoal that played an important role in establishing the flourishingDurgapur-Assansol industrial belt in the 1960s. Unfortunate as itis with many industrial units in other parts of the state, severalunits in this industrial belt too have shut down and caused severeunemployment. However, thanks to its excellent irrigation canalnetwork – and ground water extraction at a later stage – a largepart of the district has a flourishing agricultural base, which hasmade it the ‘rice bowl of Bengal’. The district occupies 7.9 percent of the total area of the State. The literacy rate of the districtis 76.2 per cent.Bankura, located in the south-western part of the state, is anothersocio-economically disadvantaged district. Almost 91.6 per centof the population resides in the rural areas. It has a SC populationof 32.7 per cent. Part of this district is hilly and covered withforest. As a result, the population share of this district is only 3.9per cent while the geographical area constitutes 7.8 per cent ofthe state. In spite of a number of rivers flowing through thisregion, the district continues to depend on the monsoon rainsfor agriculture. The pace of industrialization is slow and patchy.South 24 Parganas in the southern part was formed in 1986after bifurcating the erstwhile 24 Parganas. It continues to be alarge district with 11.2 per cent of the state’s geographical area.A large part of the district forms the largest delta system of theworld — the Ganga-Brahmaputra Delta. Fishing is thepredominant occupation. The lush green mangrove forests spread


over this region sustained one of the most beautiful animal species of the world —The Royal Bengal Tiger.

Bihar

Box 2: Bihar: A Profile

The district of Gopalganj is located on the West–North cornerof Bihar and houses 2 percent of its population of which 93per cent is rural, 12 per cent SC, 2 per cent ST and 17 per centMuslim. The river Gandak supported by tributaries like Jharahi,Khanwa, Daha, make this area fertile and alluvial and thereforeit is good for cultivation and irrigation. Parts of the six blockslike Gopalganj, Kuchaykot, Manjha, Sidhwalia, Barauli andBaikunthpur are flood affected areas and they remain under waterduring the rainy season. Almost 15 per cent of the populationworks as agricultural labour. The literacy rate is 65 per cent.

The present Bhojpur came into existence in 1992. Earlierthis district was part of old Sahabad district. The Bhojpur districtis situated at height of 192.989 meters from sea. Its main riversare Ganga and Sone and its perennial rivers are Kumhari, Cher,Banas, Gangi. Twenty two per cent of its population areagricultural labours and the main crops are rice, wheat, macca,gram. Its total population is 2728407 of which approximately85 per cent is rural, 16 per cent SC and ST and seven per centMuslim. The literacy rate is 70.5 per cent.

Katihar district is a part of Purnia Division and Katihar townis the administrative headquarter of the district. The primarysource of livelihood is agriculture. The main crops are paddy,jute, makhana, banana, wheat, maize and pulses. There are fewindustries nearby: two jute mills and two flour mills. According

Source: *Census of India 2011, #Census of India 2001


to the census Katihar district has a population of 30710293 anda population density of 1,004 inhabitants per square kilometre.The SC population comprises 8.6 per cent and ST populationcomprises 5.9 per cent of the total population. Nearly half thepopulation (42.5 per cent) is Muslim. Agricultural labour formsa significant part (39.5 per cent) of the labour force, 10 per centmore than the national average. Katihar has a literacy rate of 52per cent.

The district of Madhubani was carved out of the oldDarbhanga district in the year 1972 as a result of reorganisationof the districts in the state. The main rivers are Kamla , Kareh,Balan, Bhutahi Balan, Gehuan, Supen, Trishula, Jeevachh, Koshiand Adhwara. The whole district is in an earthquake zone. 96per cent of the population is rural, 17 per cent ST, 58 per centMuslim. Nearly half the working population (34 per cent) isengaged in agricultural labour.

Bhagalpur has 16 blocks. The head quarter of the district isBhagalpur. The total population of the district is 2,423,172 andthe area is 2,570 square kilometer. Paddy, maize and lentils arethe main agricultural crops. Tusser Silk and Thermal Power atKahalgaon are the main industries. The Ganga irrigates the district.The literacy rate is 63.4 per cent. Approximately 80 per cent ofits population is rural.

End Notes1. HAQ Center for Child Rights, Budget 2013-14 and Children: A first

glance, New Delhi, 2014.

2. International Institute of Population Sciences, National Family HealthSurvey 2, India, Vol:1, Mumbai, 1999 and International Institute ofPopulation Sciences, National Family Health Survey 3, India, Vol:1,Mumbai, 2007

3. A quick analysis by Jean Dreze, of the maiden budget speech (2014-15) of finance minister Arun Jaitley shows that there is hardly anymention of the centrally important developmental components,such as children, nutrition, sanitation, mid-day meal, etc in the speech.That the present government has so far not shown much interest inprioritizing the social sector is sadly very clear from the analysis –mimeographed.

4. Census of India, 2011


5. Bihar’s population is 12 percent greater than that of West Bengal.(Census of India, 2011)

6. The categories are: Sanctioned (the number of AWCs required pergiven population), Operational (the number of running AWCs),Reporting (which is a subset of the operational segment exceptthat these Centers regularly report to the higher authorities on per-formance) and finally those Providing Service.

7. Total Population of West Bengal: 9,13,47,736 (Census of India,2011), Total Operational AWCs: 1,12,432 (APIP 2012-13, ICDS,Govt. of West Bengal), Population served per AWC: 812 , “Sup-posed” surplus AWCs: 23%.

8. Total Sampled ICDS Projects: 9, Total Sanctioned AWCs: 3906,Total Operational AWCs: 3808, Total Required AWCs: 489, Aver-age AWCs required across the 9 project areas: 53 (489/9). Thereby,Deficit of Sanctioned AWCs: 12.04%, Deficit of Operational AWCs:12.35% (Source: CDPO offices of Sampled Areas)

9. Borooah Vani K., Diwakar Dilip, and Sabharwal Nidhi S, “Evaluat-ing the Social Orientation of the Integrated Child Development ServicesProgramme”, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol: 49(12): 53, 2014.

10. Pratichi Trust & ADRI, Status of Elementary Education in Bihar,Kolkata and Patna, 2010.

Chapter 2Ground Level Preparedness for the

Delivery Of ICDS: Field Observations

2.a. Infrastructural ReadinessThe persistent levels of undernourishment of children need tobe understood in context of the prevailing ICDS supportstructure. The observations detailed below pertain to study areasselected for our survey and ICDS centers that we have sampled.

2.a.1. BuildingWest Bengal and Bihar’s performance as compared to the nationalaverage is mediocre. At present there are 1318912 operationalAWCs in the country. In the two sampled states of West Bengaland Bihar 116390 and 81766 operational AWCs have been found,respectively.1 When we compare with the national average of42.5 per cent centers possessing their own building, we can seethat Chattisgarh and Tamil Nadu have an above averageperformance (Chattisgarh – 92.6 per cent, Tamil Nadu – 85.6per cent), and West Bengal and Bihar compare unfavorably withthese high performing states with only 34.5 and 16.1 per cent ofthe centers possessing buildings.2

Most studies and reports suggest a substantial lack ofinfrastructural provisions, particularly with regard to possessionof building.3 While our study has also found a considerable gapbetween the requirement and presence of centers, someimprovement has been observed in this matter. For example, asper field data (which seems to contradict the state’s statistics) inWest Bengal the number of ICDS centers possessing their ownbuilding has risen from 35.7 per cent to 68.2 per cent. The PratichiChild Report had found activities being conducted in the verandahsof Sishu Siksha Kendras (primary schools), village atchalas, clubs


and even in the open spaces, while in the current study 68.2 percent (approx.) of the AWCs had their own building. However,the nature of the improvement was found to be quite uneven,with some districts having all their centers housed in their ownbuilding while in others barely half of them did. This unevennessof development at the state level is found to be in line with thewider national picture.

Table 6A: Infrastructural Status of the AWCs in Study Areas of West Bengal

Source: Field Data

Table 6B: Infrastructural Status of the AWCs in Study Areas of Bihar

Source: Field Data

In Bihar, the study shows that only 33 per cent of the centerswere found to have their own building. When asked about thereasons behind delay in construction, about 20 per centrespondents attributed it to official incompetence while 30 percent of them mentioned the difficulties one encounters inacquiring land. It shocked us to learn that as many as 35 per centof the Anganwadi Workers (hereafter AWWs) in Bihar reportedinstances of buildings made for ICDS delivery lying unused


while the centers ran out of rented places for reasons such asthe inaugural ceremony not having taken place.

Alternative Arrangements:

Table 7: Alternative arrangement ifown building is not available

Source: Field Data

In West Bengal our present study found that of the 31.8 percent of the centers, without their own building, 43 per centwere running in primary schools, 14 per cent ran from rentedplaces and the remaining 43 per cent were housed in local clubs.In Bihar, of the 66.7 per cent centers which did not possess theirown building, 80 per cent were carried out from rented places,10 per cent from primary schools and the remaining 10 per centran out of a range of places. With regard to this issue, the trendsin national data are corroborated by the field level data (refer tofootnote 13).

Kind of Building

Table 8: Number of AWCs in West Bengal possessing their own pucca building

Source: Field Data


Of the centers having their own building in West Bengal, 66.7per cent of them were housed in pucca buildings while 33.3 percent were partly pucca. No kuchha buildings were found in thepresent survey unlike the previous study where kuchha and evenuncovered spaces served as centers. In Bihar, out of the 30sampled centers only 10 (33.33 per cent) had their own puccabuildings.

2.a.2. Drinking Water

The Annual Action Plan claims that in West Bengal 56.4 per centof the centers have their own drinking water facility and thisstudy has corroborated this approximately with a figure of 50per cent.4 Others are getting by either by using nearby facilitiesor a makeshift arrangement with the owners of the rented centers.It surprised us to learn that out of those 11 centers that had theirown source of drinking water, seven reported that the waterthey consumed was not safe. Jalpaiguri stood out as district wherenone of the four visited centers had their own source of drinkingwater.

Notes of a field researcher reveal:Though the overall picture of the availability of safe drinkingwater in the studied districts of West Bengal is not very pleasinganyway some specific instances are truly disconcerting. Wefound a Center in Madarihat block of Jalpaiguri districtrunning under a house. Due to the threat of elephant attacksthe houses are raised on stilts which do not even afford enoughspace below to accommodate an upright average sized person.The Center in Nepali line is run in such a place where thechildren fit but the worker has to manage everything standingoutside. Given the circumstances it would be unreasonable toexpect services like Supplementary Nutrition Programme orPre-School Education to be served in a way healthy for eitherthe children or the worker. The situation with regard to drinkingwater facility at the Center was even worse. We saw a verythin pipe line coming from a significant distance, the watersupplied by which is consequently of very low force. Thepipe end just lies on the ground and thirsty children lift thepipe to their mouth, drink water and throw it back on theground. When we asked about the source of the water, there


was another surprise waiting for us; the water was allegedlycoming from Bhutan as there was no running water facilityavailable nearby. The distance the water travels makes thepossibility of acquiring contamination higher but the AWCsof Nepali Line are compelled to adjust due to lack ofalternatives.

Table 9: Alternative Sources of Drinking Water

Source: Field Data

In Bihar the situation was slightly better where field datarevealed that almost 57 per cent of the AWCs had their owndrinking water facility. Quite like the situation of Jalpaiguri inWest Bengal, Bhagalpur district of Bihar also had no center withits own drinking water facility.

2.a.3. KitchensAn important function of the AWCs is to provide SupplementaryNutrition Programme (hereafter SNP) to children and pregnantand lactating mothers. To deliver this service, every center needsto be equipped with at least a kitchen. In the present study wefound that in West Bengal only 45 per cent of the centers had aseparate kitchen shade whereas in Bihar that was 63 per centwith 12 centers where no kitchen was available, out of which in41.7 per cent centers they cooked in uncovered spaces.According to a field researcher’s notes:

In Khatra block of Bankura, the village Kathar is isolatedfrom the nearby busy cluster by a dense forest. To reachthe village one would either have to take a private car orwalk for almost 45mins from the nearest point of publictransport coverage. The entire population belongs to theScheduled Tribe category and their economic condition isdeplorable. An AWC building is present but it has no kitchenshade. The village is divided into two hamlets and the distancebetween them is so much that the children cannot comeindependently and the parents do not find time to drop or


pick them up. Therefore, the other hamlet is completelydeprived of the AWC facility.

Table 10: Alternative Cooking Arrangements inWest Bengal and Bihar (%)

Source: Field Data

There were similar problems in districts like Dakshin Dinajpurand Bardhaman of West Bengal, the only difference was thatthey had at least a chalaghar or verandah for cooking. The chalagharswere often no more hygienic than uncovered kitchens as theyfailed to protect against any kind of contamination. Bihar, interms of pure infrastructure, performed even worse with 18per cent of the centers not even possessing a kitchen shade.Compared to the national average which shows that 55.6 percent of the centers in India have adequate space allotted forcooking, West Bengal is almost at par with 50 per cent centerspossessing covered kitchens but in Bihar the figure is a miserable18 per cent.5

2.a.4. ToiletsThere is a direct connection between the availability of toilet inan AWC and the corresponding presence of toilets in the localschool or homes; therefore it is a good indicator forunderstanding the sanitation status of a locality. As per nationaldata, half the states do not have toilets in the AWCs and amongthem, the performance of Bihar, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh arethe worst. West Bengal aligns with the poor performing states as71.5 per cent of the centers were found to have no toilets, whichis higher than the national average (61.5 per cent).6 In West Bengal,out of the 22 AWCs in our sample only 12 were found to haveany kind of toilet facility. At the same time, this was an


improvement on the condition reported in our previous study,where only 5 out of 28 centers had toilets. In Bihar, 80 per centof the centers did not have any toilet.

2.a.5. ElectricityIn all the 22 rural centers of West Bengal that we visited, nonehad electricity while the six urban centers were running in thelocal club and used their electricity. In Bihar three out of the 30visited centers had electricity.

2.a.6. SafetySince the functioning of an AWC involves children of a tenderage who are difficult to handle it is expected that the center willbe surrounded by a proper boundary wall or that it should notbe near a pond or any other risky area. However, fieldobservations revealed that the locations of many AWCs inducedsafety concerns and from our study we found six centers (27per cent) in West Bengal which were situated in distinctly riskprone areas.

As per a field researcher’s notes:The center in Joyrampur Chotodaspara at Monteswar Blockin Bardhaman district is located right next to the main roadwhich witnesses traffic flow, is circled by two ponds andhas an electric transformer right next to the center buildingand is hence terribly unsafe for children. There is not evena boundary wall.

Our study has also found that 82 per cent of the centers inWest Bengal did not have any boundary wall and the numberwas even higher (i.e. 90 per cent) in Bihar.

2.a.7. Miscellaneous IndicatorsIdeally, the AWCs should provide primary health check upfacilities with weighing machines for both children and adults,they should also be equipped with PSE materials, utensils, etc.But many of the centers did not possess facilities as essential asthose listed below:

Out of the 22 centers sampled in West Bengal and the 30 inBihar-

19 and 16 did not have any kind of primary health check-up facilities in West Bengal and Bihar respectively;


16 centers of West Bengal and 14 in Bihar did not possessany blackboard;While 100 per cent of the centers in West Bengal possessedutensils, in Bihar, 17 per cent did not;17 centers in West Bengal had weighing machines forchildren. Apart from the two cases in Murshidabad andBardhaman, all of them were in usable condition. While19 centers had weighing machines for mothers, six ofthem were not in working condition. 23 centers in Biharhad functional machines but in 9 places the weighingmachines though present, were not functional.

2.b. Human Resource ProvisionsAt the grass-root level, an AWW assisted by an AWH isresponsible for the delivery of the entire gamut of services enlistedunder the ICDS programme. A Supervisor is in charge of aselected number of centers and is the bridge between the centerand the block project office. At the block level, the CDPO andAssistant Child Development Project Officer (hereafter ACDPO)are accountable for liaising between the block and the districtlevels. And finally, the District Project Officer (hereafter DPO)at the district level is responsible for supervising and monitoringthe programme delivery in the entire district along with maintainingcommunication with the State Department of Women and ChildDevelopment. The state departments again serve as a nodalagency for the ministry at the central level.

The successful implementation of any programme dependsto a large extent on its personnel – especially at the ground levelin the actual delivery of the services. These positions are seen tobe vastly understaffed due to unfilled vacancies.

Table 11: Percentage of vacant positions



In Table 11 it can be seen that West Bengal had a sizeablenumber of vacancies for all the positions. West Bengal’s vacancygap is much above the national average. Bihar performssubstantially better in this regard, with a zero vacancy gap forboth workers and CDPOs, but there was a dearth of abouthalf the required number of supervisors weakening themonitoring mechanism.

It needs to be taken into consideration that the AWWs havenumerous duties all of which are very demanding and it is virtuallyimpossible to accomplish them in the absence of any assistant,especially with such poor basic support facilities. To add to that,they are expected to maintain an abnormal number of registers(for West Bengal the average number of registers maintained was12 while it was 21 for Bihar – as per our survey data) on a dailybasis which makes sizeable dents in their work time. There is alsoan urgent need for attention to their extremely poor honorarium ,Rs. 4000/- and Rs. 2000/- approximately, for the worker andhelper respectively. However, despite such a demanding scheduleand absence of infrastructural support, it was observed that mostof the workers were committed to their work. At the same time,it is important to remember that it is problematic to haveunreasonably high expectations of the workers since for theeffective delivery of a system one cannot count on thesuperhuman qualities of ordinary human beings like us.

The Pratichi Child Report (2008) reported that workerssometimes had to manage more than one center. However, in apositive change of circumstance, our current survey did not findthis in any center of rural West Bengal, although the problem ofunderstaffing persists. The supervisors are part of the midlevelmanagerial hierarchy and are the link between the centers andthe block offices. They are expected to visit each center once amonth, supervise the activities of the center, interact with themothers and children and guide the workers in all their activitieswith information on nutrition and health education. However,as can be seen in Table 11, the disturbing understaffing ofsupervisors has contributed greatly to breaking this bridgebetween the centers and the block offices. As a result most ofthe centers remain unvisited, sometimes for more than a month.

In addition to monitoring centers, the supervisor also has toperform a range of activities which require a great deal of time


and it is unrealistic to expect a few supervisors to do the workof all the remaining vacant positions. Along with this, thesupervisors often have to help the poorly trained workers incompleting their registers. Lack of proper training is anotherissue that becomes apparent here. Although in both the states allthe workers have received training, field observations revealedthat the training has not been able to prepare them for facing thedaily challenges of their work.

Apart from this, from table 11 it can be seen that the post ofsupervisor often lies unoccupied in both the states (West Bengaland Bihar) and at the national level. Supervisors perform anextremely crucial role in the ICDS chain and such a high vacancyrate speaks volumes about the performances of the programme.

A similarly dispiriting picture is reflected in CDPO recruitment.West Bengal has a vacancy rate of more than 50 per cent for theposition of CDPOs. From our field survey we learnt that theCDPOs were burdened with additional responsibilities of otherprojects. We met a CDPO who was responsible for five ICDSprojects and superintendence of a children’s home. As a resultof such overburdening, the rights of the millions of childrenand mothers continue to be denied. Bihar on the other hand hada much more encouraging story to tell with a zero vacancy ratein case of CDPOs. However, despite the state solving much ofthe human resource shortfall concerns, the implementation processstill suffers from massive constraints.

2.c. Supervision and MonitoringLike in the Pratichi Child Report (2008), this time too we cameacross an almost ineffective and near-absent monitoring mecha-nism. The higher officials (CDPO, and ACDPO and DPO) wereprimarily burdened with paper-work rendering it difficult forthem to visit the centers. The current supervisors on the otherhand, were weighed down by the increasing number of centerseach of them had to visit as there was a deficit in supervisorrecruitment.

In both West Bengal and Bihar, primary survey results reflectedinadequacy of supervision. It shocked us to learn that there hadbeen absolutely no visit by any DPO in both the states in the lastyear. The record of CDPO or ACDPO supervision was alsoequally discouraging. In West Bengal, most of the CDPOs hadbeen given additional responsibilities which leave them with no


time for visiting the centers. The situation was similar withsupervisors – in one block two supervisors were responsiblefor around 200 centers! Along with this, lack of official vehicles,delay in payment of transport allowance bills further fueled theproblem. One of the supervisors narrated that even if theyworked all days of the month without taking any leave, it wouldstill not be possible to visit all the centers under their supervision.In such a situation the centers in the remote villages were gettingleft out. Sometimes the supervisors called all the workers to onecenter for checking of registers and other official documents.According to one supervisor – “khata check kora chara ar kichuikore uthte pari na” (it becomes impossible to make time for anyother activities than checking of registers). In this chaos, crucialactivities like experience sharing, information exchange andawareness generation was getting left out. For instance, thesupervisors were unable to share any stories about the experiencesof workers and the mothers with any new initiative.

In both states some workers reported that the local panchayatmembers were of great help and offered assistance with anyproblems that were encountered. Villagers also extended similarcooperation. The current structure is functioning, though poorly,on individual efforts which need to be addressed urgently throughadequate investment in an adequate regulatory mechanism.

End Notes : 1. State-wise number of sanctioned, operational ICDS projects and

AWC Centers as on 22/10/2012, Ministry of Women And ChildDevelopment, India

2. Planning Commission, Evaluation Study on Integrated Child DevelopmentScheme, New Delhi, 2011.

3. Evaluation Study on Integrated Child Development Scheme, PlanningCommission, Government of India : Own Building – 34.5%, RentedBuilding – 16%, Others – 65%; Annual Action Plan, West Bengal2012-13: Own Building – 24.6%, Rented Building – 14.4%, Others– 61%; Performance Audit of ICDS Scheme 2013: Own Building –18.5%, Rented Building – 16%, Others – 65%.

4. Government of West Bengal, Department of Child Developmentand Department of Women Development & Social Welfare, StateAnnual Programme Implementation Plan (APIP)of ICDS, 2012-13.

5. Planning Commission, Evaluation Report on Integrated Child DevelopmentServices (ICDS), New Delhi, 2011

6. Ibid

Chapter 3 Ground level functioning of the ICDS

3.a. Working Hours: An AWC is supposed to bring under its foldall children under six, pregnant and lactating mothers andadolescents living in the area. While it is definitely a worthwhileachievement that for a majority of households we surveyedregistration had been completed, there still remained a percentageof unregistered children in both the states – 30 per cent in Biharand 14 per cent in West Bengal. Interviews with mothers revealedthat reasons for non-registration were the irregular functioningof the centers coupled with the inefficiency of the AWWs.However, though there had been a growth in the tendency toopen the centers on a regular basis, it was with the service deliverypattern that the mothers seemed dissatisfied. For instance, in amajority of the surveyed areas of West Bengal, it was observedthat there remained a gap in the stipulated time of functioningof the AWC and real, ground level operational activities.

Chart 5: Average working hours of AWCs

Source: Field Data


From Chart 5 it becomes clear that with regard to functioninghours Bihar betters West Bengal’s tardy performance. In WestBengal, though almost all the AWWs reported that the centersremained open in accordance with the stipulated hours, mothers’accounts differed considerably– they said that the centers werekept open for an average of two hours, the time it took to cookand distribute the food. This gave us a sense of the extent ofdelivery of the other stipulated services, especially pre-schooleducation. Sadly, no marked difference from conditions duringPratichi Child Report (2008) was seen with regard to functioninghours of the centers. In the earlier report 50 per cent of thesurveyed mothers had stated that the average working hours ofthe center to be around two hours while in the current study adecrease of four percentage points (to 46 per cent) was found.In Bihar unlike West Bengal, there seemed to be a consonancebetween the responses of the workers and mothers regardingthe working hours of the AWCs. However, one needs toremember that the responses of the mothers’ were probablygrossly subjective as they were influenced by their socio-economicbackground, lack of voice and subsequent helplessness, restrictedchoice and lack of awareness of the ICDS entitlements. Biharhas a very strong caste and class hierarchy which might haveinfluenced the reporting of the mothers.

Even against this backdrop, it will not be appropriate to putthe entire blame on the AWWs. These workers very often becomethe victims of mass discontent and displeasure. It is not that allworkers are inefficient or are not dutiful towards their work butoften they are victims to the larger issues of administrativeaccountability, programmatic inefficiencies, long hierarchical chainof reporting and other functioning linkages that togetherconstitute the problem.

3.b. Service Delivery

3.b.1. Supplementary Nutrition Programme

At the first International Conference on Nutrition in 1992, a firmstand was taken in the World Declaration on Nutrition statingthat “Hunger and malnutrition are unacceptable in a world thathas both the knowledge and resources to end this form of


catastrophe”.1 Twenty two years have passed but the changewith regard to this issue has been inadequate. The latest Foodand Agriculture Organisation (hereafter FAO) estimate of theprevalence of undernourishment shows that despite abundantfood supplies and considerable progress in reducing hunger insome regions, more than 805 million people had chronicallypoor levels of dietary intake during 2012-14.2

According to the Global Hunger Index (hereafter GHI) 2014India ranks 55th among 76 emerging economies, placing beforePakistan and Bangladesh but behind neighboring countries likeNepal and Sri Lanka. According to the report though India isnot in the ‘alarming’ category anymore, she still falls under the‘serious’ category.3 The report of the India State Hunger Index(hereafter ISHI) 2008 brings out the dire situation of states likeBihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. All states have issuesrelated to serious hunger.

There is no positive relationship between the under-fivemortality in a region and its child health and nutritional status.Though India’s IMR fell from 88 in 1990 to 41 in 2013 the factstill remains that 21per cent of the total under-five deaths in theworld still happen in India.4 Although India has witnessed a strongeconomic growth in the last few years, malnutrition of thoseunder five continues to be among the highest in the world. Rateof malnutrition in children of India is almost five times morethan that of China and twice that of Sub-Saharan Africa. Nearlyhalf of India’s children are underweight and 75 per cent areanaemic.5 This picture is corroborated by ICDS data which statesthat 25.9 per cent of the children in India are moderatelymalnourished.6

As a response to this situation in 2001 the Supreme Courtmade it mandatory for the central and state governments toprovide Supplementary Nutrition every day to every child up tosix years of age and all pregnant and nursing mothers.7

In West Bengal the food generally supplied in AWC is eitherkhichdi or dal and sabzi served with rice. While the instruction isto provide a full egg thrice a week, children in general preferredto have eggs every day. In those situations the AWC workersprovide half an egg every day instead of one for three days.Supply of food grains has been regularised in more or less allcenters across the state unlike the situation described in the first


Pratichi Child Report (2008) which observed short and irregularsupply of ingredients. The Essential Commodity SupplyCorporation (hereafter ECSC) mainly supplies the rice and pulsesto the project level whereas the AWC workers have been giventhe responsibility to procure vegetables, eggs and other necessaryingredients from the local market.

Table 12: Food Supply Regularity in West Bengal and BiharResponses of AWWs’ (%)

Source: Field Data

In Bihar 46 per cent of the visited AWCs were facingproblems related to irregular supply. It is mandated that a fixedamount of money (Rs. 16225/-) is to be provided to each centerto buy the rice, pulses and other necessary groceries but the supplyof money is very irregular and cooking is not possible every dayaccording to the AWWs. Since the amount is fixed and does notvary with the number of children, if any center cannot exhaustthe entire amount in a month, it is instructed to refund the rest tothe Government. While Bihar had a general problem of irregularsupply in most centers, West Bengal fared better with almost 82per cent of the centers responding that they did not face anyproblem with regard to supply of ingredients. Regular feedingas part of SNP had become a common feature in all the centers.In fact, some of our sampled centers even reported to having abuffer stock of food grains. As many of the AWWs narrated,“If we ever face any deficit problem, we (the AWCs) manageamong ourselves, lending from the center which has a bufferstock and returning the same once the required stock comes in”.


However out of our sampled AWCs in West Bengal, therewere four centers that reported to having problems with regardto food supply, and all of them happened to be in areasinhabited primarily by Adivasis. It has been seen that irregularfood supply is more common in areas with residents of loweducational status (total literacy and female literacy rate), economicwherewithal and social integration. Belonging to a particular socialgroup creates a sort of exclusion that goes towards makingthem lose their ‘voice’ resulting in their complaints being ignored.Though the supply of food grains had improved in West Bengal,for cooking some other materials such as oil, salt, turmeric, etcare also essential. Unfortunately, the supply of these items washighly unsatisfactory. We will discuss this issue in the later part ofthis section with a detailed picture of the budget.

Table 13: Profile of the villages of West Bengal with poor food supply

AWWs almost everywhere in West Bengal told us that they try toprovide meals to the children every day but the mothers saidthat it is not always feasible for them to go to the center andcollect food or drop children. In short, the main problem herewas that of access. Many of the mothers have reported that thedistance of the AWC hindered them from receiving SNP as itbecomes difficult for the mother to leave her household workand other activities. In many cases, health conditions of preg-nant and lactating mothers does not permit them to walk longdistances to avail the nutritious food.

(Source: Census of India, 2011)

*

* Here, the agricultural labourers are counted excluding plantation workers.


Table 14: Regularity of SNP reception: Responses of mothers ofWest Bengal and Bihar (%)

Source: Field Data

In West Bengal almost 70 per cent of the mothers whosechildren are between 0-6 years of age regularly took meals fromthe AWCs. On the other hand, 37 per cent of the mothers whohave children below the age of one and 19 per cent who havechildren between the age of one and six did not take food fromthe AWC for their children for reasons such as distance, andduties on the farm that leave them little time to make long tripsto and fro.

Class consciousness has played a role in hindering optimumperformance of ICDS as we saw that the well-off familiesavoided allowing their children to have food with others in thecenter. In many cases these families voiced their dissatisfactionwith the quality of food as what they eat at home is better thanthe food provided at the center. The relatively powerful stayingaway from public services has resulted in lower accountabilityand hence poorer performance of the programmes.

Sometimes religious beliefs of people serve as barrier to theiravailing of SNP. For instance, during the field survey in WestBengal:

In Nandanpur Village of Dakshin Dinajpur a particularchild was restrained by his family from consuming themeal served at the Center. Subsequent inquiry revealedthat the child came from a vaishnav family that disagreeswith the consumption of non-vegetarian food, onion andgarlic. However, being thus deprived regularly upsets thechild and whenever he visits his uncle’s place he eats allthese items at their local AWC.

The picture was different in the case of Bihar. To begin with,we had already seen problems in the supply of food grains dueto governmental inefficiency. But 81per cent mothers of children

* We are not clear at this point whether the high percentage of no responses is an offshootof field work related complexities or reflective of people’s reticence to engage.

*


aged between 1-6 years replied that they take food from thecenter regularly. Yet while observing the centers we found manyof them were closed on most days of the week and even theAWWs admitted that due to lack of funds it was not possiblefor them to provide food every day. Besides, they hesitated tokeep the center open to avoid the uncomfortable situation ofchildren coming and asking for food which they could notprovide. This disjoint between perception and reality could becaused by two factors – informational deficits among peopleregarding how often food was supposed to be supplied as perrules, leading to a perception of once a week being ‘regular’, incombination with a problem of positional objectivity wherebygiven the existing economic condition any amount received wasseen as beyond one’s entitlement.

As Dreze and Sen point out:Unlike many other states that havepassively implemented the central guidelines, Tamil Nadu has taken ‘ownership’of ’ ICDS and invested major financial, human and political resource in it.8A direct impact of such initiatives can be seen on the functioningof the ICDS: while in West Bengal and Bihar the average workinghours are two and four hours respectively, in Tamil Nadu thecenters remain open for more than six hours a day. The centersare essentially acting like crèches in those places. Also, regulartraining programmes for the workers and involvement of theHealth Department with the ICDS have made the programmesuccessful in the state.

Table 15: Place of Eating for Children (%)

Source: Field Data


As is evident from table 15, in almost all the sampled districtsof In West Bengal almost 70 per cent of the mothers whosechildren are between 0-6 years of age regularly took meals fromthe AWCs. On the other hand, 37 per cent of the mothers whohave children below the age of one and 19 per cent who havechildren between the age of one and six did not take food fromthe AWC for their children for reasons such as distance, andduties on the farm that leave them little time to make long tripsto and fro.

The food generally served in West Bengal is either khichdi orrice with vegetables and if possible the centers provided eggs.Also, in Bihar the menu was almost the same except for theeggs, as confirmed by our field visits. When asked about thequality of food 67 per cent mothers in West Bengal replied thatthey were satisfied and 71per cent replied positively about thequantity. In Bihar, 50 per cent of the mothers expressed theirdissatisfaction with the quantity of food and almost 70 per centraised issues related to the food quality. Almost 45 per cent ofthem expressed grievances about there being no variation in thefood served as they provide khichdi in the center every day. InWest Bengal mothers who were dissatisfied with quality said thatthere were barely any vegetables in the food.

It may be worth mentioning here that though there weresome AWWs who were trying their level best to provide thenutritious food to the children sometimes they also got frustratedwith the meager supplies they were provided with. For the smoothfunctioning of the AWC financial assistance plays a very crucialrole in the success of the programme. A budgetary analysis ofprovisions of SNP in the two districts (Murshidabad andBirbhum) of West strongly suggests the requirement for higherfinancial allocation (See table 16A-C).


Tabl

e 16

A: V

eget

able

budg

et o

f M

ursh

idab

ad (C

har l

abon

gola

2 AW

C, B

hagw

ango

la -1

) and

Bar

dham

an


Tabl

e 16

B: E

gg b

udge

t of

Mur

shid

abad

(Cha

r lab

ongo

la 2

AWC,

Bha

gwan

gola

-1) a

nd B

ardh

aman


Tabl

e 16

C: S

oyab

ean

budg

et o

f M

ursh

idab

ad (C

har

labon

gola

2 AW

C, B

hagw

ango

la -1

) and

Bar

dham

an


There were district-wise variations in allotment for food inWest Bengal. In Murshidabad where the allotment for the‘normal’, malnourished children and pregnant and lactatingmothers is Rs 4, 5 and 6/- respectively, the meal generally providedwas khichdi with some vegetables and a boiled egg. From ourfield observations we noticed that it was hard to find vegetablesin the preparation. On the other hand, in districts like Bardhamanwhere the allotment for the same is Rs. 6, 7 and 9/- respectively,rice with vegetables was provided for three days and khichdi isprovided for the next three days. Here too half a boiled egg wasprovided every day.

Allotment for rice in Bardhaman was sufficient with 45 gmrice for each child but the allotment is less in places likeMurshidabad with 32 gm rice per child. That the food providedat AWC is just a nutritional supplement is a well known fact butthe amount in Murshidabad does not meet the children’srequirement or demand. From the above two calculations ofBardhaman and Murshidabad district, it can be seen that if eggsare provided in right amount then in Bardhaman each child willget 27.6 gm of vegetables and in Murshidabad 3.3 gm.

If the allotted amount is used to buy vegetables in each districtthen the children of Murshidabad will get one third the amountprovided to the children of Bardhaman. It is hardly acceptablethat children of same age will get different amounts of food forbeing located in different areas. Also districts like Murshidabadwhere the problem of hunger is so acute and allotment per childshould be increased immediately, this is especially unfair.

It also needs to be brought to the policymaker’s notice thatthere is no separate allotment for essential ingredients such assalt, turmeric or oil in the budget. It has already been mentionedthat with the meager monetary allotment sufficient vegetablescannot be purchased and if one has to deduct from that topurchase spices, it will further worsen the quality of foodprovided. While interviewing the worker we were told that theChild Development Project Officer (CDPO) of Murshidabadhad ordered the workers to cook food without oil. What theCDPO had in mind is not certain but that the food lost its nutritioncontent is more than certain.

In West Bengal though the ‘supply’ of the rice and pulses hasbeen regularized and even a buffer stock of ingredients has been


observed, in the absence of the necessary ingredients like saltand oil, does the food remain nutritious as it is supposed to be?Even if we leave the nutrition aspect aside does the food remainpalatable for children?

As the worker of the ICDS center in Chor labongola,Murshidabad told us:

‘We are told to involve the community to supply a goodmeal to the children. With the small amount we cannotprovide vegetables or pulses everyday if the people of thevillage do not provide support. But the ingredients like saltor turmeric are generally not produced at home and it isnot possible for them to purchase those for all the childrenevery day.’

3.b.2 Pre-School EducationPSE for children aged 3-6 forms another crucial component ofthe ICDS programme. It plays an important role inuniversalization of education by giving children adequatepreparation for attending primary school and therebycontributing towards mainstreaming. Also, by offering substitutecare to the younger siblings, it gives the older children, especiallygirls, the opportunity to attend school. However, despite anemphasis on early childhood care and education (hereafterECCE) across the world9 and in various policy initiatives ofIndia,10 the domain of PSE in the ICDS programme continuesto be neglected. SNP has always received prominence in theprogramme design – and understandably so, given the highprevalence of hunger across the states. But the highlighting ofone component has resulted in the percolation of the messagethat providing SNP is the primary responsibility of the centers.According to the distribution of duties of the ICDS workersthe preparation of the meal is the responsibility of the helper.However, it often becomes difficult for the helper to tackle theentire process single-handedly and thereby the worker also getsinvolved in the process – resulting in the PSE component gettingneglected.


Table 17: Neglect of Pre-school Education

The fact that PSE persists as a neglected component of thescheme becomes apparent from the fact that even the ministrywebsite officially declares that children of ages 3-6 years receiveSNP but rarely PSE. This pattern holds true for all states, withBihar recording a major discrepancy of 56 per cent, which wasmuch above the national average of 3.1 per cent. While it wasdefinitely an achievement that West Bengal records a significantlylower gap, the question still remains why the discrepancy is ubiq-uitous. This data suggests that the state has accepted the fact thatin many areas these function only as feeding centers.

In one particular village in West Bengal, the AWC wasfound closed on the day of the visit and during the stipu-lated hours. The village women were found chatting nearbyand they narrated in a matter-of-fact manner that it wasvery common for the center to be closed. Food has beencooked and distributed to the children and so the work-ers have left. They also reported that this was almost aregular phenomenon.

In the midst of all this neglect and abandonment, it can beseen that there has been a slow but rising demand for PSE. ThePratichi Child Report in 2008 showed that when ranked in orderof preference, 65 per cent mothers prioritized PSE over all otherservices to be provided by the center. The current survey hasconfirmed the persistence of this trend with more than 60 percent mothers in West Bengal having advocated PSE for theirchildren. In Bihar, 100 per cent mothers affirmed the impor-tance of education in the early years, portraying the picture of arise of a very strong demand for education in Bihar. At the sametime the basic support required for meeting this demand wasfound to be run down.



Table 18: Extent of Pre-school Education (Anganwadis)


What we gather from field experience differs substantiallyfrom what is described in the official documents, but even officialsources reveal the depressing scenario in Bihar. Levels of servicedelivery are reflected in the categorization – sanctioned (thenumber of AWCs are required given population), operational(the number of running AWCs), reporting (which is a subset ofthe operational segment except these centers regularly report tothe higher authorities on performance) and finally the segmentthat provides PSE. It has already been discussed in the beginningof this chapter that there was a discrepancy between the numberof operational and reporting centers. With regard to PSE delivery,Bihar lags much behind the national average with 42 per cent ofits centers not providing any pre-school services. Though Biharhas definitely shown some improvement with an increase ofabout 10 percentage points (49 per cent in 2013 to 58 per centin 2014)11 this is an unimpressive rate of growth compared toother states.

Thus, what is revealed is a demand versus supply discrepancy.While over the years, (through convergence programmes,community participation and various national campaigns)awareness levels have increased, with mothers becomingconscious about the necessity of preschool education, the centerssuffering from dearth of support facilities are failing to meetthis increasing demand. A simple illustration will help inunderstanding the condition of support facilities: 44 per centmothers in West Bengal reported that the center did not haveany books for imparting PSE. In case of Bihar, this numberwas 81 per cent. Similarly, approximately 50 per cent of themothers of both the states said that the center did not have a


blackboard for teaching – surveyed AWCs of Gopalganj andMadhubani districts of Bihar reported to having absolutely nobooks for teaching. Number and colour identification, learningletters, reciting stories and rhymes form an integral part of thePSE component. One can well imagine how it is being impartedwith such meager support facilities!

In this context, it needs to be mentioned that ICDS guidelinesof year 2000 stipulated state level procurement of PSE kits andtheir distribution to the centers on a yearly basis. The processwas decentralized in order to ensure timely availability of kits atthe centers and the ministry provided an amount of Rs. 500/-per kit (which was later increased to Rs. 1000/-) for procuringthe required materials. However, the Comptroller and AuditorGeneral (hereafter CAG) Audit Report placed in Parliament inthe year 2013, stated clearly that despite the orders, under-spendingwith respect to purchase of PSE kits was widely noticed. In thisrespect, underutilization of funds was noticed in West Bengalduring the audit period of 2006-07 to 2010-11. The CAG reporthad raised a lot of relevant questions and media generated massoutrage about the poor commitment of the governmentstowards their children. However, the issue faced a quick deathbefore much national debate or discussion could be generated.Yet the budget crunch and poor spending continue.

Along with dearth of materials for imparting PSE, there arealso structural constraints faced by the centers. A primaryrequirement for conducting educational activities with childrenin a joyful manner is space: 32 and 77per cent AWCs of WestBengal and Bihar respectively, do not function from their ownbuildings. It also needs to be taken into consideration here that alarge percentage (36 per cent in West Bengal and 80 percent inBihar) of the centers did not even have toilets. One needs toreally think about whether it is actually possible for such a largenumber of children and the workers to refrain from using toiletfacilities for as long as four hours. In West Bengal, a workerreported that whenever she needs to use the toilet, she had totake leave for about a quarter of an hour to run to her house atthe other end of the village to relieve herself. Teaching and learningunder such conditions appear daunting.

Problems are further aggravated by the absence of supervisionand monitoring. It has already been discussed that the disturbing


shortage of staff at the supervisory level results in major lapsesin conducting an efficient regulatory mechanism. All these factorshave negatively contributed to the poor functioning of the pre-schooling activities resulting in mothers becoming increasinglydissatisfied with the workers’ performance. Although, since thePratichi Child Report in 2008, the level of discontent with theworkers for not imparting any sort of pre-schooling activitieshas gradually decreased (While 64 per cent mothers stated absenceof PSE to be the reason for being dissatisfied with AWWs in2008, it reduced to 29 per cent in 2014), yet much more remainsto be done.

As the workers are the lowest service level providers and arein direct contact with the people, they very often fall prey to thefury of the villagers, even when structural constraints were themajor barriers for them not being able to render the services inan efficient and effective manner. However, even against suchodds we came across several committed and dedicated workers.

From our field researcher’s notes:In one center of Nepali Line area of Jalpaiguri district ofWest Bengal, elephant attacks are common due to whichhouses are elevated with wooden posts. Under such anelevated house, an AWC is functioning where it is difficultfor an adult to stand straight. However, this has not stoppedthe worker from rendering her services. Since Englisheducation is an area of attraction, on demand from themothers she has taken her own initiative in teaching Englishalphabets and numbers to the children. The children werealso found to speak a few words in English and certainEnglish books had been procured by the worker herself. Asimilar story of worker’s commitment and dedication hasbeen observed in Char labangola area of Murshidabaddistrict of West Bengal. Such stories of motivation,innovation and dedication continue to serve as the lifelineof this community-based ICDS programme. However, tillthe time these are complemented with adequate supportmechanism, such initiatives will continue to remain asscattered bits of the broader picture.

3.b.3 Health ServicesAccording to the directive of the ICDS, there should be regularhealth check-ups of children under six, antenatal care of expectant


mothers and postnatal care of nursing mothers. The healthservices provided for children by AWWs and Auxiliary Nurse/Midwife (hereafter ANM) of Sub centers should include regularhealth check-ups, recording of weight, immunization,management of malnutrition, treatment of diarrhoea, de-worming and distribution of simple medicines etc,.12 It is alsomandatory for the ANM to examine the children, adolescentgirls, pregnant women and nursing mothers at the AWC itself.The ANM should be able to identify and treat minor ailmentsand refer other cases to the PHC / Sub-center. Maternal andchild health facilities should be geared towards providing adequatemedical care during pregnancy, at the time of childbirth and alsopost-partum care. These services should also aim at promotingsafe motherhood, healthy child development and reducingmaternal and infant mortality.

The primary role of AWW is to survey and identify womenand children for these services and gather the identified peopleduring the visits of the ANMs. AWWs are also expected tocoordinate with the ANMs of the Sub-centers.

According to a report of the Planning Commission of Indiain 2011, while the provision of health check up facility in WestBengal (54.9 per cent) was somewhat lower than the nationalaverage of 66.1per cent, Bihar’s performance was worse whereonly 18.9per cent of the AWCs were found to have providedthe facility. AWC workers reported to there being basic healthcheck up facilities in only two centers of Dakshin Dinajpur andone in South 24 Parganas of West Bengal. In Bihar 47 per centof the workers replied to having any basic health check up facilitybut again it was mainly concentrated in districts like Katihar (6),Bhagalpur (5), and Bhojpur (3). The wide variation in what theofficial report suggests and what we gather from the field requiresurgent scrutiny.

A key indicator of child’s nutrition status is weight whichshould be regularly measured centers. A basic requirement forefficient functioning of this service is availability of functionalweighing machines in the centers. The Pratichi Child report in2008 found that this service was not getting adequate attentionwith only half of the surveyed mothers responding to theirchildren ever being weighed at the centers. The current studyreported some improvement with 61 per cent mothers of West


Bengal replying in the affirmative. However, it is the condition of the weighing machines that

requires urgent attention here. In both the states it was observedthat the centers had weighing machines but in many of them itwas not functional. While for West Bengal, out of the 77 percent of the centers with weighing machines for children, 11.8per cent were beyond using, in case of Bihar; this was as high as39 per cent. The picture was further worse in case of themachines meant for weighing adults. For example, in Jalpaiguridistrict of West Bengal none of the four centers had weighingmachines for children, three of them had adult weighing machinesbut only one of them was working, thereby resulting in onlyone center having a functional weighing machine. But at the sametime, almost 70 per cent mothers of Jalpaiguri replied that theirchildren were weighed in the last year. During our field visits wehave observed that sub-centers were very active with regard toweighing and immunizing children or registering pregnantmothers. Accredited Social Health Activists (hereafter ASHA)acts as the key person between the people and the sub-center toenable this activity and thereby it is a possibility that the childrenwere weighed at the sub-centers resulting in the mothers relyingin positive.

Bihar on the other hand, again portrayed poor performance.While majority of its weighing machines were non-functional,even about half of the surveyed mothers responded that theirchildren were never weighed at the center last year, especially indistricts like Madhubani and Gopalganj where weighing ofchildren is almost a rare phenomenon. The present survey didnot find any reference of the ASHA workers or the ANMs ofthe sub-centers in this regard for Bihar as it had been observedfor West Bengal. Weight keeping, which is a crucial componentof the health services of the ICDS programme, thereby continuesto remain neglected.

Next to weighing, arranging regular meetings forms anothercrucial component of the health services. According to themandate, workers are to arrange meetings with the mothers atregular intervals and suggest ideas related to pre and post natalhygiene practices, importance of nutrition, immunization, etc.If such meetings can be organized effectively, it is bound toreflect on their daily lives. In our study almost all the AWWs in


West Bengal and Bihar replied that they organize at least onemeeting per month but unsurprisingly almost all the mothersdenied having attended any such meeting. Among them, 96 percent of the mothers in West Bengal and 97 per cent in Biharreplied that they were not provided any information of suchmeetings, whereas 27 per cent in West Bengal answered that theydid not find time to attend them. The national average also doesnot give us a more encouraging picture regarding such meetings.

A medical kit containing some general medicines of commoncough and cold, fever, bandages for minor injuries, etc., issupplied to all the centers. While interviewing the CDPOs inWest Bengal, it was found that as the health department wastreating the sub-centers as the first point of health service delivery,they are also reluctant to provide regular medical kits to the AWC.Besides, we saw during our field investigations that the ANMsand ASHA workers were very active in villages so the peopledid not even come to the AWC anymore to ask for medicines.Therefore the lack of provision on one hand and the relativelyactive sub-centers on the other hand, seem to have furtherundermined the AWCs’ health service delivery. Also, the AWWsdid not get any training to provide medicines; therefore, like theprevious findings of Pratichi Child Report (2008), workers werevery hesitant to provide medicines. In 17 out of 21 centers inWest Bengal, workers reported that in a year they got the medicalkit only once. The situation in Bihar was no better. While in 13per cent of the centers the supply of medicines occurred everymonth or more, in 23 per cent of centers the supply arrivedannually or even less frequently.

Table 19: Medicine Supply in Selected AWCs in Bihar (%)

Source: Field Data

The immunization programme is mainly carried out by theDepartment of Health where the ICDS plays an assisting role.The main responsibility of the workers is to motivate the mothersto have their child and themselves immunized during pregnancy.


They also assist ANM to arrange health camps in the villagesand maintain relevant records. This is particularly important giventhe current status of immunization in both the states. Our dataon 89 children (of 0-12 months) in Bihar and 71 children of thecorresponding age group in West Bengal showed that while inboth the states the rate of immunization of BCG was high (93per cent in Bihar and 92 per cent in West Bengal) correspondingfigures for other vaccines were abysmally low. This pattern wasfound to be in line with the other disaggregated data sets, suchas figures compiled by the Planning commission,13 which showedthat while the degree of BCG vaccination in Bihar and WestBengal were 94 per cent and 74 per cent respectively,corresponding figures for measles were 52 per cent and 82 percent respectively. And this partial success resulted in a much lowerdegree of full immunization (40 per cent and 67 per cent inBihar and West Bengal respectively).

After immunization, it is the referral services that form yetanother important component of the health services. The referralservices are meant to provide special medical attention to theseverely malnourished, disabled, pregnant women. Accordingto the responses from our study in West Bengal it was foundthat out of the 22 centers, seven centers had referred the child inquestion and eight centers had referred the mother to the nearbyhealth facility, in the last six months. In Bihar we had also foundthat of the 30 centers visited, five had referred the mother andseven had referred the child in the last six months.

3.b.4 Nutrition and Health EducationThis has the long term goal of capacity-building of women –of the 15-45 age group especially – so that they can look aftertheir own health, nutrition and development needs as well asthat of their children and families. In India public awarenessabout general health and hygiene is at a stage of infancy. Thesituation gets further aggravated when in the name of age-oldrituals and customs, dubious health practices are inculcated. Thisinformation poverty flows down the generations resulting inpoor standards of health, hygiene and nutrition of the populace.For instance, it is a common belief that that the mother’s firstbreast milk – colostrum – is harmful to child’s health when actuallythe opposite is true. Thus, even though it is believed that a child


is best left at home, this perception needs to be reviewed whenthe state of basic health and hygiene at home is such. To meetthe challenge of information asymmetry and nutritional neglect,under the aegis of ICDS services began its operation in 1975 inIndia. NHE was initiated with the main aim of providing theadolescent girls, women and the present mothers, informationon basic health, hygiene, nutrition, sanitation, immunization andfamily-planning. It is for this purpose that conducting VillageHealth and Nutrition Days (hereafter VHNDs) with theparticipation of mothers, workers, ANMs and other panchayatpersonnel has been made compulsory. VHNDs are supposedto be held every week and minutes are to be maintained of thediscussion. Mothers’ meetings therefore play a very importantrole in generating village awareness levels since it is now a wellestablished fact that educating a woman implies educating theentire society.

NHE is delivered via inter-personal contact and discussionthrough the following services/activities:

Services for children: care and monitoring of child’s growth,timely immunization , knowledge about breast feeding, treatmentof diarrhoea/minor illness, prevention of provision of home-made medicines, preparation of nutritious food/feedingpractices, importance of education of the child, lessons onsanitation and hygiene, preparation of oral rehydration solution(ORS), care of severely malnourished children.14

Services for Mother : Provision of information on immunizationduring pregnancy, benefits of institutional delivery, feedingpractices during pregnancy and lactating period, correct postureduring pregnancy and breast feeding, self care, illnesses, nipplehygiene, purification of water for mothers and adolescent girls,family planning, etc.15

However, in West Bengal, despite a rise in awareness levelsregarding mothers’ meetings – participation still remains a bigchallenge. In spite of AWWs reporting that mothers’ meetingswere held every 27 days – 96 per cent mothers reported thatthey had never attended any such meeting and a greaterproportion attributed the reason of non-attendance to lack ofinformation about the events. A similar picture was seen in Bihar


also where the information gap played a big role in the mothersnot being able to attend the meetings. Interestingly, the nationalaverage also does not show any encouraging trend with thePlanning Commission reporting that only 0.25 per cent mothershave attended NHE meetings. For Bihar the percentage is aslow as 0.06 per cent while for West Bengal it is 0.36 per cent.16

It also needs to be kept in mind that through generation ofawareness, NHE primarily intends to bring about a change inthe behavior pattern and subsequent health practices of themothers, women and adolescent girls. Unsurprisingly, the PlanningCommission in 2011 reported that both West Bengal and Biharperform poorly at cultivating behavior change in accordancewith the advice given in NHE meetings.17

So, where does the problem lie? The workers report thatmeetings are held regularly while majority of the mothers giveus a contradictory picture. If it is assumed that meetings aregenuinely held regularly, even then its impact on behaviour changeis minimal. The workers were often said that the mothers werenot giving the meetings due importance whereas as per our surveyonly two mothers in West Bengal and one in Bihar displayedwere explicitly disinterested in attending meetings. On thecontrary, about seven per cent of mothers in Bihar have actuallyraised a demand to be called to such meetings and giveninformation on health and hygiene. This is definitely a verypromising potential which needs to be actualized. Absence ofadequate training sessions along with lack of information abouthygiene often hinders the worker from conducting effectivemeetings. Regular support and advice from the supervisors canhelp the workers in solving this critical problem. However, theregulatory mechanism of the ICDS programme is currently at ajuncture where on one hand it is handicapped by dearth of staffand on the other hand by an overload of responsibilities.

End Notes1. Jomo Sundaram K. and Rawal V., “Nutrition: What needs to be

done”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol: 49 (42), 2014

2. The State of Food Security in the World (SOFI) 2014

3. Global Hunger Index , International Food Policy Research Institute(IFPRI), October 13, 2014


4. About half of the all under-five deaths occur in only five countries -India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and China.India (21 per cent) and Nigeria (13 per cent) together account for morethan a third of all under-five deaths in the world’, Levels and Trendsin Child Mortality, Estimates developed by UN-Inter agency groupfor child mortality estimation, 2014.

5. The World Bank, Helping India Combat Persistently High Rates ofMalnutrition, 2013, www.worldbank.org accessed on December 6, 2014.

6. ICDS defines the undernourishment into four categories namelyGrade I, Grade II, Grade III and Grade IV. The Grade I and Grade IIis defined as moderately malnourished which is similar to underweightor undernourished and the Grade III and Grade IV are defined asseverely Malnourished. - Classification of Nutritional Status ofChildren, Ministry of Women and Child Development, IntegratedChild Development Services, March 2014.

7. 300 calories and 8-10grams protein to every child up to six years, 600calories and 16-20 gm protein to severely malnourished children upto six years of age and 500 calories and 20 gm protein to all thepregnant and nursing mothers every day, The norm has been changedrecently where it has been instructed to provide 500 calories and 12-15grams protein to children up to 6 years of age, 800 calories and 20-25 gm protein to severely malnourished children up to 6 years of ageand 600 calories and 18-20gram protein to all the pregnant and nursingmothers. Supreme Court Order, November 28, 2001 and 2009.

8. Dreze Jean and Sen Amartya, An Uncertain Glory: India and itscontradictions, New Delhi: Penguin-Allen Lane, 2013, pp 172-174.

9. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/world-conference-on-ecce/,http://www.unicef.org/rosa/217145e.pdf, http://www.unicef.org/rosa/education_7862.htm,http://www.aea-southasia.org/Uploads/ecce-experiences-in-india1.pdf (Accessed on 10/12/14)

10. National Policy for Children (1974), National Policy on Education (1986),National Nutrition Policy (1993), National Health Policy (2002), NationalPlan of Action for Children (2005), National Curriculum Framework (2005),Right to Education (2009) and obviously the ICDS (1975) all haveaddressed and emphasized the importance and contribution ofECCE in the development of children.

11. http://wcd.nic.in/icds/icdsdatatables.aspx , accessed on December11, 2014.

12. http://saiindia.gov.in/english/home/our_products/audit_report/g o v e r n m e n t _ w i s e / u n i o n _ a u d i t / r e c e n t _ r e p o r t s /union_performance/2012_2013/Civil/Report_22/Report_22.html,accessed on December 8, 2014.


13. GOI, Integrated Child Development Services, Department of Women and Child Development,http://wcd.nic.in/icds.htm , accessed on December 13, 2014.

14. Planning Commission, Status of Immunization of Children (compiled from ICDS records);New Delhi, 2012.

15. Source: http://wcd.nic.in/icds/. Acceessed on 30/11/2014

16. Planning Commission, Evaluation Report on Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), NewDelhi, 2011

17. ibid.

Chapter 4ICDS – The Urban Scenario

In this section, the data collected from six municipal wards inthe three districts of West Bengal (Dakshin Dinajpur, Bardhamanand South 24 Parganas) are analysed. Open-ended discussionswith six AWWs, as many AWHs, and sixteen mothers and indepth interviews with three CDPOs of these wards, informthis analysis.

The Supreme Court order in 2004 accelerated the pace ofuniversalization of the ICDS programme. Though the rural areashave witnessed some advancement urban agglomerations areyet to witness a similar improvement. In rural areas, a broadersocietal movement played a determining role in the overallexpansion and functioning of the centers. However, in the urbanareas, there are challenges which further complicate successfuldelivery of ICDS such as the appeal that private players seem toenjoy. This popularity rides on the public perception: ofgovernment programmes as meant only for the vulnerable, whoare considered inconsequential both by the market and theirrelatively affluent neighbours.

Gaps in Functioning

Absence of Child Friendly EnvironmentThe AWCs in urban areas are very often forced to functionfrom small, dingy spaces devoid of proper ventilation. This isbecause availability of space is a problem in the ward locations.They primarily function from local clubs which unsurprisinglylack adequate infrastructural support or a suitable environmentfor nurturing children. It is very difficult to carry out preparationof nutritious food, imparting of pre-school education and otherrequisite activities from these places. The absence of spacious,adequately lit and ventilated rooms was also seen to create


dissatisfaction among the parents and leads to irregular childattendance.

In the centers within our sample, we found varied forms ofneglect including those which put the children at severe risk. Inone center it was observed that the children were hooked to thetelevision in the club and the worker was busy assisting the helperin preparing the meal. In another municipality ward, a mothercomplained that she was hesitant to send her child to the centeras it was located near an accident prone area.

Land Donation ConcernsThe ICDS programme does not have any provision for purchaseof land. The programme rests on community ownership,participation and cooperation for its functioning. Therefore, thescheme depends on land donation for construction of a center.However, land donation has emerged as a significant problem,especially in the urban locations. Due to rapid urbanization,increasing population of the municipality ward areas and sky-high property prices, land donation for construction of centershas taken a hit. In such a scenario, the urban projects are forcedto offer its services from local clubs or some other places payingpaltry rents. Since the rates are meagre and there is often delayedfinancial disbursement, the owners are rarely keen to continuewith the agreement. Moreover, these places do not alwaysconform to the norm – both with regard to the work scheduleor important infrastructural dictates such as floor size. Interviewswith AWWs and CDPOs in the urban areas revealed their seriousdisagreement with the current land acquisition norms.

The role of private playersThere has been an increase in private kindergarten schools andcrèches in the urban areas in the last few years. With their spaciousaccommodation and child-friendly environments they havedefinitely been able to attract the urban dwellers. There has beena movement towards these schools over the years and the under-funded ICDS centers with their poor infrastructural support areseen as no competition. However, the attractive facilities of theseprivate kindergarten schools come at the cost of social exclusionand furthered class hierarchies.

To combat the problem of children leaving ICDS centers


after a while and joining the more prestigious private kindergartenschools the workers suggested the provision of a certificate forchildren who complete PSE and are ready for school. It is acommon feeling that small incentives such as these may helpthem in motivating the parents to send their children to the centers.

Low Awareness regarding Public ProgrammesIn contrast to the rural areas where there is higher visibility ofthe AWCs and their easy accessibility, mothers in the urban areaswere found not to have any information regarding the existenceof the AWCs or their importance in the development of a child.Nor did they display any awareness of the entitlements to bereceived from the centers. Very often, this lack of informationabout government programmes also pushes families towardsprivate enterprises. To solve this problem campaigning shouldnot be targeted-based; on the contrary a universal approach needsto be adopted for successful utilization of the services offeredunder the programme.

Class biasThere is a common perception that the government programmesare meant only for slum dwellers and therefore the affluent avoidthese programmes. This perception further enhances the societaldivide. This gets highlighted even in our small urban sample wherein55.3 per cent of mothers reported to never availing the nutritiousfood for their child. Out of this, 30 per cent of the mothers openlydeclared not needing the supplementary meal. Poor quality of food,irregular services and inconvenient timings were cited as otherreasons for not taking food from the center.With regard to other aspects of functioning, 86 per cent of themothers were seen complaining about the poor quality of ricewhich lacks both the taste and the necessary nutritious value. Acomparatively high percentage even voiced displeasure with regardto the quantity of the food offered to the children. In contrast torural areas, the workers in the urban centers have not been able todevelop any relationship with the mothers and thereby contentmentwith the workers’ functioning was also found to be poor amongmothers. Irregular schedule of the centers was another recurrentcomplaint. However, like the rural agglomerations, here too thecenters are mostly perceived as feeding centers.

The AWCs in urban areas appear to be in a deplorable state.Emphasis has been placed largely on the development of theprogramme in the rural locations and the urban projects continueto function with serious handicaps. To revive the current situationthe policy around acquiring land will need more thought, giventhe logistical problems that arise from the current arrangement.Emphasis needs to be laid on awareness programmes sinceinformational deficit regarding these programmes has emergedas a significant hindrance and finally, infrastructural provisionsneed to be competitive with the alternatives to ICDS for it toremain a viable option for the urban population.


Chapter 5Scope and Challenges

The ICDS programme has been subject to considerable criticismand there has been severe questioning about the justification forcontinuing this programme, based on random incidents of foodpoisoning or stories of inactive centers. But despite such instances,it needs to be understood that the scheme is actually improvingits performance thought at a less than ideal pace. And the needfor the ICDS has been supported both by the growing evidencein its favour and in the sound arguments forwarded by expertsdefending its current form. It is accepted that the standard ofimplementation of the programme has been poor – but this isnot really a universal phenomenon. Tamil Nadu and HimachalPradesh are shining examples where it has been proved thatgovernment commitment and political will can make for thesuccessful overall functioning and effective delivery of theprogramme.

For a while now the ICDS scheme has been consideredsynonymous with food – colloquially even referred to as “khichdischools”. However, over time, people’s perception has changed.As we have seen, all the functionaries –workers, supervisors,officials, local panchayat – have and played a role in correctingthis notion. ICDS is a scheme based hugely on communityparticipation; therefore, unless there is societal involvement, theprogramme remains ineffectual. The essence of this idea ismanifested in instances where the mothers have voiced theirsupport by providing several suggestions for better delivery andfunctioning of the scheme.

While a lot of emphasis is still placed on the betterment ofthe SNP, mothers have also expressed their satisfaction withregard to food quality and quantity in comparison with previousstandards. However, this has been primarily observed in West


Bengal where nearly 70 per cent mothers went on to report thatthe quality of food has improved. Thus, although certain amountsof dissatisfaction continue to persist in view of poor quality andabsence of variation of food, field observations indicate thatthere has been a substantial improvement in the overall functioning.The picture however is not so encouraging for Bihar whereconcerns still exist regarding both the quality and the quantity offood provided. According to our primary survey, only 29 percent mothers have reported to being satisfied with food quality.This is definitely a matter of extreme concern and in an effort toresolve the situation, the mothers have suggested that they becalled for meetings where there can be open discussions regardingthe overall delivery system of the centers. This problem-solvingapproach speaks volumes about the community’s personalinvestment in the programme and increasing levels of awarenessregarding its importance in the lives of their children and thesociety at large.

We have already discussed the gaps in coverage in thebeginning of this chapter. With regard to this issue, 12 per centmothers in West Bengal have claimed that lack of proximity ofcenters is a barrier for sending their children to the centers. Thusthe location of the centers and its approximate distance fromthe village is an issue that needs to be looked at with considerableseriousness. However, it is here that the policy and basic designof the scheme poses a problem. ICDS is a scheme based oncommunity initiative and participation and thus requires land tobe donated by the villagers for setting up centers. Under nocircumstance does the scheme allow purchase of lands. But giventoday’s hikes in land prices, land donation has seen a serioussetback. Our interviews with workers, supervisors and CDPOsreveal that unavailability of land is often the primary barrier tobuilding new centers. In some places, it was even observed thatthe amount allotted for constructing new building had to bereturned due to land unavailability. The issue got furtherexacerbated in urban areas with the centers being forced to runin dilapidated and ill-ventilated places. Thus, in all probabilitygiven the demand of the present situation, the scheme needs toreview its existing land policy.

The fundamental understanding that ICDS is much morethan just “food” has reached deep into society as can be


understood from the fact that in both states, mothers haveincreasingly asked for improvement of overall service deliveryof the programme – which includes emphasis on pre-schooleducation, health education, information on basic health, hygieneand nutrition and so on. In West Bengal, although more than 60per cent mothers appreciated the services of the AWWs, of theremaining percentage who expressed their discontent, 29 percent strongly demanded proper implementation of PSE. InBihar, more than half of the surveyed mothers were found tobe hugely dissatisfied with the AWWs’ services. A disaggregationof the reasons for dissatisfaction revealed that in 90 per cent ofthe cases, dissatisfaction could be attributed to irregular servicesof the center. An irregular functioning can occur in the absenceof an effective regulatory mechanism which we have alreadydiscussed in the human resource section where we have alsofocused on the disturbingly high shortage of workforce. Themere fact that the mothers of both the states have raised theirconcerns over service delivery pattern and functioning of thecenters perhaps points towards the immediate need for fillingthe enormous number of vacancies in the midlevel managerialpositions.

From a functioning perspective, it also needs to be broughtto attention that the underpaid AWW is overburdened with work.Assisted by a helper and in some places, even in the absence ofhelper, the AWC worker is singlehandedly responsible for a largenumber of activities and official paper-work, which areimpossible to complete within the stipulated four hours.

In urban areas the problem of land acquisition in times ofenormous land prices, the lure of private kindergarten schools,the rejection of the programme by all who can afford alternativesand less than enthusiastic publicity campaigns leading to poorpopular knowledge of entitlements from ICDS has led to verypoor performance of the programme.

And last but not the least, the success of any programmerests on the shoulder of its bearers, but it is equally essential thatthey are provided with an adequate support system. Financialallotment plays a huge role in the strengthening of a programmeand it needs to be remembered here that we are dealing withchildren’s lives here which can neither be compromised norcontinued with a fragmented approach. There has been an

argument against universalization of this scheme on the basisthat this is unnecessary and not cost-effective and that forsuccessful implementation of the scheme, the intervention needsto be targeted. However, it needs to be understood that there isno effective mechanism for “targeting” children who arevulnerable to malnourishment. Any such move would exclude alot of children leaving them exposed to becoming victims of ill-health or undernourishment. Further, chances of adverse selectionand biased judgment cannot be fully ruled out and henceuniversalization is the only alternative.

The ICDS has been a slow performer but has still managedto achieve on significant markers like increased coverage, regularityin food supply, convergence with community, increasing emphasison pre-school education and heightened awareness levels of thecommunity. However, despite the achievements, it is an opensecret that the intricacies of the system need to be seriouslyworked out for a more effectively performing publicprogramme. The Pratichi Child Report (2008) made severalimportant observations and provided substantialrecommendations. The present study in its revisit found a numberof positive initiatives, innovative approaches and somedevelopment. However, considering the need of the hour, theurgency of the situation calls out for a more accelerated pace ofprogress.



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icds in west bengal and bihar - pratichi (india) trust child...1.a. icds in india, west bengal and...

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