KEVADIA, GUJARAT: To ensure no child in the critical 0-6 years age group whose family migrates from one state to another is deprived of access to anganwadi facilities including the cooked meals and nutritions “take home ration” the Union ministry of women and child development has asked states to ensure “universalisation” of access to these services based on the registration details of the child on the central monitoring platform the ‘Poshan Tracker’.
This implies that a child enrolled at any anganwadi across states will be able to avail of the same services and get the cooked meals and rations at a centre in another district of the same state or in a different state by citing the Aadhaar-enabled registration details available on the Poshan platform.
This step is critical as a large number of families availing anganwadi services include migrant workers who often move out of their villages for work to urban areas. Among beneficiaries there are also seasonal migrants who leave for cities when the agriculture season is over and return after some months to the villages. It is seen that in such cases there is a strong possibility of the child dropping out of the anganwadi system that supports the monitoring of development of children and identifying deficiencies and preventing malnutrition.
The data available on the government’s Poshan Tracker shows that there are over 12.65 lakh anganwadi centres across India and there are over 11.36 crore beneficiaries including children in the 0-6 years age group, pregnant women, lactating mothers and adolescent girls.
At a sub-zonal meeting of the WCD ministry held in Kevadia in Narmada district, the local officials steering the anganwadi centres in the villages there shared that many migrate from the tribal dominated district around monsoon for work and therefore they have been taking steps and using the Poshan tracker to link beneficiaries to other anganwadis. Also the provision of Aadhar kits has helped them register children with greater ease at the centre itself and connect them to the facilities.
Senior officials from the WCD ministry said that the move to push for universalisation of access is now achievable as the Poshan Tracker not only captures the real time data of every child coming to an anganwadi but also the data on disbursal of take home rations.
The Poshan Tracker dashboard also shows that some new applications have been added to capture information like the number of beneficiary records becoming inactive, beneficiary migration from one AWC to another AWC and data on beneficiary deletion by anganwadi workers.
FacebookTwitterInstagramKOO APPYOUTUBE
