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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Delhi's Anganwadi Centres Need a Complete Overhaul and Renewed Funding -Abinash Dash Choudhury and Sweta Dash

Delhi's Anganwadi Centres Need a Complete Overhaul and Renewed Funding -Abinash Dash Choudhury and Sweta Dash

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published Published on May 25, 2019   modified Modified on May 25, 2019
-TheWire.in

With one of the highest undernutrition rates of children in urban areas, Delhi needs to tackle the issue of severely stunted children in the city who don't have access to proper infrastructure and facilities at local anganwadi centres.

New Delhi:
It is an early summer morning in North Delhi’s Kabir Basti. A dingy and crowded lane of the settlement, with puddles from water leakages in broken pipes, opens up to a small structure – lying barely noticed, only recognisable by a shiny board which hangs in the crevice of two houses – the local anganwadi centre (AWC), a room with no windows, and no toilet facility.

The walls are bare without any storage space, and a large rug mat lies on the ground for children to sit. There are a few young boys and girls sitting, their knees touching each other with barely enough space for their hands to move. There is a muffled humdrum around, and they seem very fidgety. Soon, they inform us that they have come for private tuitions. The anganwadi rarely opens, they say.

Kabir Basti, nestled in Delhi University’s north campus, is a working-class settlement, home to mostly Muslims, who are migrant daily-wage labourers. With limited earnings, the people here rely heavily on government schemes like the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) to ensure a nutritious diet and pre-school education for their children.

Umair is playing with his friends in the vicinity. He is about five years old, and belongs to the age group of children who go to the AWC. Staying adjacent to the centre has had no benefit for him – he has rarely had a chance to attend. Asma, his mother, a woman in her mid-30s, confirms that there is no anganwadi worker in the centre and the helper does come regularly but only to distribute food.

“There is only one lady who serves food and goes, earlier they used to listen to stories, but, now for a long time they haven’t had anything happening there,” she says. Four of her three children who are below the age of six do not derive the full benefits of the ICDS entitled to them.

Asma’s husband adds that there has been no anganwadi worker in the centre for a long time now. When we spoke to him about the woman we met in the centre early this year in January, he said, “Yes, ammaji was also an anganwadi helper.” He recalled that ammaji had even looked after him when he was a child. “Ammaji could not read or write, but she had learnt so many stories and poems over the years that children have always adored her. Now that even ammaji is gone, all our children stay back at home.”

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TheWire.in, 21 May, 2019, https://thewire.in/government/delhi-anganwadi-centre-infrastructure-facilities


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