Delhi government may add milk, eggs to anganwadi meals soon

The move aims to tackle malnutrition among children in the age group of 0-6 years, who are enrolled at the 10,758 anganwadi centres or government-run day cares in Delhi under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme.

In a first for Delhi, the government plans to introduce milk and eggs in the daily meals provided at the anganwadi centres across the city.

In a first for Delhi, the government plans to introduce milk and eggs in the daily meals provided at the anganwadi centres across the city. (Photo by Praful Gangurde/ HT Photo) (HT Photo)

The move aims to tackle malnutrition among children in the age group of 0-6 years, who are enrolled at the 10,758 anganwadi centres or government-run day cares in Delhi under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme.

The anganwadis cater to around 6.5 lakh children in the city, according to government data.

Malnutrition has been a long-term standing issue with these children, most of who come from low-income neighborhoods. Last July, three siblings had died of starvation in east Delhi’s Mandawali area. Two of the younger sisters, in that case, were not enrolled at the anganwadi centre located a stone’s throw away from their home.

“We plan to introduce milk and eggs, as an addition to the existing menu. Eggs, however, will be an optional item,” said a senior Delhi government official.

At present the menu for six days a week has two options daily and includes meals such as khichdi, vegetable pulav, dalia and halwa, among others. Besides an evening snack — such as chana or matar — is provided daily.

The anganwadi centres, which run under the city government’s women and child development department, are also set to receive an overhaul in terms of the number and monitoring of kitchens, quality of take home ration and a worker for each centre. “The department will soon be floating three separate tenders for the overhaul in the nutrition component as well for revamping its infrastructure. The size of the kitchens will be bigger and CCTVs will be installed for better monitoring. The detailing has already been done,” the official said.

While one tender will be for food items, the other two will be for semi-automated kitchens and high-quality packaged take home ration.

At present, there are around 500 kitchens being run by self-help groups attached to 20 NGOs that prepare the meals and supply it to each of the anganwadis.

The number of kitchens however has been planned to be reduced to around 50, which have a bigger area of operation and will cater to a larger number of anganwadi centres across 95 projects under ICDS.

During a number of inspections of the kitchens, said officials, it was found that they were operating out of small rooms and in some cases not even at their registered address.

The conditions under which the meals were being cooked needs to be monitored for strengthening the scheme. Besides, the quality of packaging of the take-home packets has to be bettered so that the items don’t get spoiled, said officials.

“The number of vacancies for supervisors and workers too are in the process of being filled. Around 1,050 candidates have been shortlisted for the post of workers, who will be recruited by March,” said another official.

At present the centres have around 9,500 workers. For supervisors, 380 posts have been filled against the sanctioned strength of 420.

So far shortage of staff had been plaguing the centres, as one worker has to look after a cluster of anganwadis.

“This will be the first time in the city that milk and eggs have been planned to be added to the menu in order to improve the nutrition and the problem of children being underweight. Better infrastructure and monitoring of kitchens will help in improving nutritional value of food as well as in fixing gaps,” said Nisha Singh, advisor to women and child development minister Manish Sisodia.

The anganwadi centres under the ICDS programme aim at holistic development of children (0-6 Years) and pregnant and lactating women. The services include supplementary nutrition, immunisation, health check-ups and pre-school-non formal education, among others.

At 11.7%, Delhi has the highest percentage of severely stunted children resulting from malnutrition, said the Urban Hunger and Malnutrition report released by an NGO in 2018.

“The addition of these high-nutrition items may help in increasing the enrollment of children at anganwadi centres. The quality and frequency of weaning food items as well has been a concern and need to be improved largely. Enhancing the overall quality of the programme will help attract more families to enrol with these centres,” said Arvind Singh, head, research and advocacy, Matri Sudha, an NGO working in this sector.