With 55p a meal a day, anganwadis fail to meet costs

CHENNAI: Fifty paise is the lowest legal tender in the country. Add to that five paise, and you get the daily allocation for food for an underprivileged child in an anganwadi.
Tamil Nadu ranks first in implementing the integrated child development scheme (ICDS), but 55 paise is all that’s given towards purchase of vegetables, fuel and condiments per child a day in an anganwadi in the state.Of this, 25 paise is for vegetables, 19 paise for fuel and 11 paise for condiments. As for rice and dal, government provides it from the PDS.
“Till about three months ago, it was only 44 paise per day per child. When we said it was impossible to manage with that, they increased the allocation to 55 paise,” says R Selvi, an anganwadi worker who gets a monthly salary of Rs 5,000. Her anganwadi has 25 children, for whom the government gives Rs 6.25 per day for vegetables. There are days when up to 40 children come to the centre, but the rations are not increased.
The ICDS is a centrally-sponsored child nutrition scheme implemented by state governments. It addresses health and nutrition needs of children under the age of six through a network of centres known as “anganwadis”, but inflation has cut into the quality of its meals.