TABLE 7: SERVICES AND BENEFICIARIES OF ICDS

THE RIGHT START INVESTING IN EARLY YEARS OF EDUCATION 37

A. Public Provisions for ECCE

I. The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)

According to Kapoor (2006): “...the Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) is the world’s largest integrated childhood programme, modelled in part on the US Head Start programme (Bhavnagri, 1995).” ICDS is the flagship programme of the central government which seeks to provide a holistic and integrated package of services related to health, nutrition and pre-primary education, following a life-cycle approach. ICDS targets pregnant women, lactating mothers and children from the prenatal stage to 6 years of age. It provides a package of six services: supplementary nutrition, pre-school nonformal education, nutrition and health education, immunisation, health check-up and referral services.

TABLE 7: Services and beneficiaries of ICDS12

Services

Target Group Service provided by (i) Supplementary nutrition Children below 6 years, Pregnant and lactating mothers AWW and Anganwadi helper [MWCD] (ii) Immunisation Children below 6 years, Pregnant and lactating Mothers ANM/MO [Health system, MHFW] (iii) Health check-up Children below 6 years, Pregnant and lactating mothers ANM/MO/AWW [Health system, MHFW] (iv) Referral services Children below 6 years, Pregnant and lactating mothers AWW/ANM/MO [Health system, MHFW]

(v) Pre-School education Children 3-6 years

AWW [MWCD]

(vi) Nutrition and health education

Source: MWCD website Women (15-45 years) AWW/ANM/MO [Health system, MHFW & MWCD]

The nodal agency responsible for the programme is the MWCD. However, due to its integrated nature, other ministries such as the Ministry for Health and Family Welfare (MHFW), Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment (MSJE), are also involved. The convergence between the various services of the ICDS and the different ministries responsible for it is to be operationalized through the creation of AWCs, where each of these services is provided through the coordination between various sectors, departments and ministries.

The number of operational AWCs as of 2015 was 1.35 million, of which only 1.25 million provide preschool education. The number of 0-6 year olds availing benefits of the SNC is 82.8 million, while the figure including pregnant and lactating women is 102.2 million. The coverage of ICDS has increased over the years but between 2013-14 and 2014-15, despite an increase in the target and actual number of ICDS projects and operational AWCs, the number of beneficiaries of the supplementary nutrition programme and pre-school education have decreased, which is a cause of concern (for more details on coverage see Annexure 2).

The decline in the population availing ICDS services, despite increase in budgets and provisions made for universalisation since 2001 (Rajan et al., 2014) is attributable to several factors, ranging from problems with implementation, lack of political will as well as a result of changing aspirations among parents, particularly with respect to preschool education. Rajan et al. (2014) argue that a

12Details regarding each of these services is given in Annexure 2.