The Chief Secretary, B V R Subrahmanyam chaired a meeting to discuss the ‘Annual Programme Implementation Plan’ (APIP) for 2020-21 in respect of Anganwadi Services under the flagship scheme- ‘Integrated Child Development Programmme’.
Administrative Secretaries of Finance Department, Agriculture Department, Social Welfare Department, Jal Shakti Department, Planning, Development & Monitoring Department, Rural Development & Panchayati Raj Department, Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs Mission Director, ICDS, among others participated in the meeting.
At the outset, Chief Secretary reviewed the action taken report on the directions issued by the State Empowered Programme Committee. During the meeting, it was informed that the Scheme is currently being implemented through 128 Child Development Projects having 30,765 Anganwadi Centres and is benefitting 6.73 lac children and 1.6 lac pregnant and lactating mothers.
It was mentioned that the Department is providing various services including supplementary nutrition, immunization, health check-ups, pre-school education, nutrition-health education, and referral services, besides generating 4.19 lac Aadhar cards.
For effective implementation of ‘Decentralization Policy for Procurement of Supplementary Nutrition’, Chief Secretary impressed upon Deputy Commissioners to monthly review the progress of implementation of nutrition programme and ensure proper procurement, expenditure, quality control and hygiene with respect to procured nutrition.
The Chief Secretary asked the Department to constitute District, Block and Panchayat Level Committees to ensure community participation in Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities of POSHAN Abhiyan. “Community based events on the themes associated with maternal-children health viz Annaprashan Diwas, Suposhan Diwas, Pratham Entry, De-worming, etc. should be a regular feature”, he added. It was further directed that a calendar of activities be framed to maintain uniformity across various Child Development Projects.
The Chief Secretary asked MD, ICDS to expedite rolling out of ICDS-Common Application Software (CAS) to facilitate capture of data by frontline functionaries towards developing an effective monitoring and intervention mechanism.
