India News | Delhi Govt Invites Expression of Interest for Supplying Supplementary Nutrition to Anganwadi Centres
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The Delhi government has invited expression of interest for supplying supplementary nutrition to Anganwadi centres across 11 revenue districts of the national capital.
New Delhi, Jul 22 (PTI) The Delhi government has invited expression of interest for supplying supplementary nutrition to Anganwadi centres across 11 revenue districts of the national capital.
Delhi Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Kailash Gahlot approved the proposal to invite expression of interest (EOI), a government statement said.
Also Read | No Data on Number of Anganwadi Workers Who Died Due to COVID-19: Govt Tells Lok Sabha.
Self-help groups (SHGs), their consortium, and organisations having resources to set up and operate large kitchen and food processing units with the involvement of local women collectives may participate subject to fulfillment of eligibility criteria laid down in the EOI guidelines, it said.
The existing system is 15 years old and predominantly operated by non-profit organisations. In most of the cases, the women engaged by them remained in the workforce rather than developing as self-sustainable self-help groups, the statement said.
Also Read | ‘Lions Appear Aggressive’: Plea Filed in SC Against National Emblem Atop Central Vista.
The minister recently visited some of the Anganwadi centres and kitchens in Delhi and after a series of meetings directed the WCD department to develop guidelines to ensure effective and efficient involvement of SHGs or women collectives at the local level.
The guidelines prepared are based on the studies of different models operating in the country for supply of the supplementary nutrition and recommendations received from the expert committee constituted by the department, the statement said.
The new guidelines focus on the quality of services, standardised mechanism, fortification process, food labelling, packaging and strengthening monitoring system to prevent leakage in the supply of supplementary nutrition, it said.
At present, there are 10,897 Anganwadi centers under 95 projects in Delhi with approximately 9.5 lakh women and children registered as beneficiaries entitled to supplementary nutrition.
Some of the Anganwadi centres have been merged into hubs called Saheli Samanvay Kendra for integrated and comprehensive service delivery which promotes women empowerment besides fulfillment of core objectives of the Anganwadi services, the statement said.
The District Nutrition Committee headed by the respective district magistrates shall facilitate the convergence of different stakeholders for the effective functioning of the supplementary nutrition programme, it said.
A dedicated Project Management Unit will be set up at the department level which will monitor the involvement of the organisations and SHGs associated with them and evaluate the performance. Periodic checking of the distribution of supplementary nutrition and mobilisation of beneficiaries for their enrollment under the scheme shall be done by the Mukhyamantri Anganwadi Monitoring Committees constituted by the department, the statement said.
The scheme covers children between the age of six months to six years and pregnant women and lactating mothers registered at Anganwadi centres. Besides supplementary nutrition, the services rendered at Anganwadi centres include immunisation, health check-ups, referral services, early childhood care education, nutrition and health education, it said.
Supplementary nutrition is supplied on a predetermined nutritional scale in the form of hot cooked meal and take-home ration and is aimed to reduce malnutrition among children, it further said.
"Our prime objective is to have a modernised set up for cooking hot meals and processed take-home ration, quality testing and scheduled delivery at Anganwadi centres so that the services reach the end beneficiary at least for 300 days a year uninterruptedly," Gahlot said.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)