Government in process of geo-tagging all anganwadis

The government is collaborating with a Gujarat-based agency to geo-map all anganwadi centres, the Women and Child Development Ministry said on Tuesday.

The information was given to a parliamentary standing committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports by the WCD ministry. The parliamentary committee report was tabled in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

"The Ministry is also doing collaboration with Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications & Geo-informatics (BISAG-N) for geo-mapping of AWCs," it said.

There are nearly 14 lakh anganwdi centres in the country.

The WCD ministry said that 90.49 per cent of beneficiaries registered on the Poshan Tracker have been successfully verified with Aadhar.

The WCD ministry said the integration of the Poshan Tracker with Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) portal of Health and Family Welfare Ministry is under progress.

The RCH Portal is designed for early identification and tracking of the individual beneficiary throughout the reproductive life cycle of women and promote, monitor and support the reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) schemes delivery and reporting.

Further, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has also established a call centre under POSHAN Abhiyaan.

"A toll-free number '14408' is allocated to Ministry of WCD for POSHAN Abhiyaan Helpline. The Call Centre is enabled with both Inbound & Outbound calls. Call Centre is supported for multi-lingual and expansion is synchronised with Roll-out of ICDSCAS Application. The outbound are made in following languages i.e. English, Hindi, Telugu,Tamil, Marathi and Malayalam," the ministry told the parliamentary panel.

The Committee noted that the WCD ministry has utilised Rs. 17,251.95 crore as on February 27 which is about 72.09 per cent of the amount allocated under RE i.e Rs 23,912.69 crores.

The Committee also recommended that the factors responsible for underutilisation of funds by states/bodies be identified and remedial action be taken in a time bound manner.

The committee also pointed out that the utilisation of funds for different schemes varies from 70-71 per cent of RE 2022-23.

Noting that the WCD ministry has been allocated 92.7 per cent of the projected demand, the Committee recommended that there is a need to encourage state governments to develop a robust mechanisms which can help push for enhanced fund utilization from the funds allocated.

"It is also noted by the Committee that funds utilisation out of the allocated amount to various organizations have been about 89.5 per cent of the total allocated amount," it said.

The Committee recommended that it would be beneficial for the ministry to prepare a Standard Operating Procedure towards each major scheme with responsibilities, timelines and an in-built monitoring mechanism.

The Committee also recommended that the factors responsible for underutilisation of funds by states/bodies be identified and remedial action be taken in a time-bound manner.

Noting the allocations under major Schemes, the Committee pointed out that as per the Budget Estimates 2023-24, majority of the ministry's total allocation distributed primarily amongst the three Centrally Sponsored Schemes namely Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0 Scheme, Mission Shakti and Mission Vatsalya.

Also, around Rs 258 crores have been allocated amongst autonomous bodies such as National Commission for Women, Central Adoption Resource Authority, National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development and the National Commission for the Protection of Child's Rights.