Prabha Dhurve, a native of Dhaniya Jor village, Baihar block, Balaghat, an Anganwadi worker has not received her honorarium since October 2007. She is not the only one; Anganwadi workers in village Rajo and Bhanpur Kheda, Bichhiya block, district Mandla have also not received their honorarium since October and November 2007, respectively. To make the matter worse, the Anganwadi centre in Dhaniya Jor and Bhanpur Kheda have not received money for the months of November, December and January. Despite the persistent delay in disbursement of money for functioning of Anganwadi centre the Anganwadi workers are regularly discharging their duty of providing nutritional food to children by purchasing material and edible item on credit from the local shopkeepers. For a period more than a quarter the Anganwadi centre is running on this credit system only!
While the centre and the state government are sharing the expenses equally, the latter has set Rs.1.55 billion as its share. Funds for the new nutrition policy have been increased to Rs.3 billion for the current fiscal (2007-08) as against Rs. 1.1 billion during fiscal 2006-07. Despite this robust hike the funds are not percolated to the grassroots and Anganwadi centres in tribal villages continue to run on borrowed money from the local grocers.
Also, there are various impediments created in practical translation of ICDS by the new nutritional policy for enhancing the nutritional value of food provided to children under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) introduced by the state government since April 2007. Situation has become graver with the advent of this new policy. From only daliya or panjeeri, the menu at Anganwadis now includes poha, laddoo and halwa-puri. The process is also decentralized, with the money for supplies being sent directly to a joint account between the Anganwadi worker and the local mothers’ committee. There are also attempts to “celebrate” every Tuesday as Mangal Divas, wherein pregnant women will be treated to a godh-bharai, birthdays will be marked, and so on.
Sunita Yadav, President of District Anganwadi worker's union, a native of Rajo village, Bicchiya block, Mandla, says, "Earlier the Anganwadi centres used to directly receive raw daliya but as per the new nutrition policy there is a provision of payment of Rs. 2 per child in an Anganwadi centre. Now we are facing a persistent delay in reimbursement of money to Anganwadi centre. Also, it is not at all manageable for us to cook as per the new menu within Rs. 2 per day per child."
Furthermore, though there are provisions for enhancement of nutritional value in the new policy but little has been done to develop the systems and mechanisms for the implementation of so as there is neither any separate budgetary allocation for oil, wood or other item used in cooking nor the recruitment of additional staff to meet out the purpose. Prabha expresses her plight as she says, "there is no assistant in my Anganwadi centre. It gets tough for me to purchase the raw material, cooking food for around 60 people and maintaining a daily record for this. Due to this I have no time now to undertake pre schooling component with the children".
Since the money is sent to the joint account between the Anganwadi worker and the local mothers’ committee it has been also reported that at some places due to tussle between the two signatories a delay in releasing money has been caused.
Moreover, the advent of new nutritional policy for providing 20 different kinds of meal including kheer pudi, laddoo, mathri to the expectant mothers in place of daliya has led to declination of expectant mothers in such centres. Prabha shares her view as she says," the expected mothers prefer to have daliya from an Anganwadi centre than pudi – sabzi. Earlier such mothers used to daily visit the centre but now they don’t come regularly. On asking the reasons they replied that we can also have pudi – sabzi at our home and also it's less nutritional than daliya".
In the wake of delay in disbursement of honorarium and money for Anganwadi centres and problems raised due to new nutritional policy the situation seems a heap of dilemmas and crisis for the Anganwadi workers. Though the recent announcement of increase in the honorarium and incentive amount of Anganwadi workers and Assistants to Rs. 2,000/- and Rs. 1000/- per months respectively in State budget 200809 under Employees welfare head might come as a sigh of relief for many but its translation at the grassroots is still dubious. The reason justifying this skepticism is that in the year 2007 there was a hike of Rs. 300 in Anganwadi worker's honorarium; let alone the hiked money the workers have not even received their Rs. 1000 throughout the year. It seems that for the state government there is neither any acceptance for these workers as by paying them 'honorarium' its presumably keeping them out of the system nor it has empathy to understand that this 'meager' amount is monthly income for a worker!
In the meanwhile despite the budgeted and sanctioned billion rupees for the Anganwadi centres they continue to run on credit money and workers are left without their hard earned honorarium. But hopes are still kindling.
Chandni Tyagi |
