A survey, conducted in Wokha district as part of a European Union (EU) funded project, has revealed that less than 5% of beneficiaries have availed nutrition and health education benefits and less than 5% were completely satisfied with behaviour of Anganwadi workers under the flagship Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme.
The EU-funded project titled ‘Improving access to information and delivery of public service schemes in remote and backward districts of North East (NE) states of India’ also revealed that none of the beneficiaries had attended the Non formal Pre-School Education (PSE) programme for children aged 3-6 years while less than 50% were aware of the process involved in the scheme for availing benefits.
Carried out in the later part of 2015, the survey which covered 28 villages from 2 blocks of Wokha district also revealed that 40% of beneficiaries flagged poor services of staff as an issue even as 70% said they had not noticed contact details of officials for grievance redressal. 50% of beneficiaries also said problems faced under ICDS mostly related to entitlements.
This EU-funded project, covering 7 backward districts across 5 NE states including Wokha in Nagaland, is being implemented by the Paris-based French NGO Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED) along with Guwahati-based North East India Committee on Relief and Development (NEICORD) which in partnership with local NGO Team Metamorphosis (TM) is responsible for field implementation, Bangalore-based Public Affairs Center (PAC) which is tasked with the research component, and the Guwahati-based Nanda Talukdar Foundation (NTF) as its media advocacy component.
The project seeks to achieve three main results, namely, to encourage demand for improved service delivery, improved access to and quality of public services particularly for the most marginalized and women, and to enhance transparency of service providers for 10 central government flagship schemes: IAY, JSSK, ICDS, MDM, MGNREGA, RKVY, NBA/TSC, RGGVY, NSAP, and TPDS.
ICDS, established in 1975 by the Ministry of Woman and Child Welfare, Government of India aims to improve nutritional status of preschool children aged 0-6 years; lay foundation for proper psychological, physical and social development of children; reduce incidence of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition and school dropouts; achieve effective coordination of policy and implementation in various departments to promote child development; and to enhance capability of mothers to look after normal health and nutritional needs of children through proper nutrition and health education. At the national level, it has, to an extent, been instrumental in improving health and wellbeing of mothers and children under 6 years of age by providing health and nutrition education, health services, supplementary food, and pre-school education.
Eligibility and entitlements under ICDS include health check-ups, supplementary nutrition and health education for pregnant women and nursing mothers; supplementary nutrition, health check-ups, immunization, referral services, and non-formal education for children aged 0-3 and 3-6 years; and supplementary nutrition and health education for adolescent girls aged 11-18 years.