CM distributes smartphones to 10,000 Anganwadi workers

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government will develop the Anganwadis like the high-end playschools, asserted Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday. The Chief Minister also launched a programme for the distribution of smartphones for around 10,000 Anganwadi workers. "There is a perception that Anganwadis are merely centres for providing food to children. Children would come, they will be given food and sent back. Now an Early Childhood Care Curriculum is being introduced so that Anganwadis provide the kind of care and education that is provided at the expensive playschools. Even the poor will have access to the facilities that the rich do. Anganwadis will now be developed into playschools," said the Delhi Chief Minister.

The smartphones being provided are aimed at reducing the administrative burden of Anganwadi workers and improving the efficiency of the department. According to the officials, this step will also help to maintain a real-time monitoring mechanism of the status of all centres. This will be a major step towards enhancing the quality of Anganwadis in the city. "Whenever governments have to provide electronic appliances to people on a large scale, ordinarily they provide substandard products. But we are providing you high-end phones, ones that ministers, IAS officers use. You don't have to worry about the data charges either, the government will take care of it. Earlier you would have to maintain 11 or 12 registers monthly at each Anganwadi. Now using this smartphone, you will be able to enter everything into our database and the government will directly have access to that information. This is a digitisation of the entire Anganwadi sector that will not only benefit you but also the department" said CM Kejriwal.

Stressing on his government's commitment to the welfare of Anganwadi workers, the chief minister said, "I recall that many of you had come to us with the low salary problem. We could have hiked your salary then as per the norm by 10 percent to 20 percent, which was also what you had demanded. Instead, we had hiked your wages by 100 percent. Delhi's Anganwadi workers may now be the highest-paid in the country."

The Cheif Minister said that whenever someone talks about electricity, water, schools, hospitals, Mohalla clinics, people across the country vouch for the work being done in Delhi. It is my dream that soon Delhi should also be known as the state where Anganwadis are the best. The same system was running for the last 70 years and had run government schools to the ground. "But over the last five years, it was the same set of individuals who turned around the schools of Delhi. We didn't replace the teachers or Principals, we just gave them a better environment to work in. Now the same 10,000 Anganwadi workers who were neglected by earlier governments will turnaround the Anganwadis of Delhi," said the Chief Minister.