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Four lakh Anganwadi centres to come up in four years: Govt

The Centre has said that will establish four lakh Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) in the next four years. 

“We have nearly 14 lakh Aganwadis in India. Nearly 40 per cent of them do not have their own building and are being run from rented spaces. This year we have decided to construct 50,000 Aganwadis as per the scheme cleared last year in July. The work is in progress and nearly 35000 of them are in final stages. The AWCs will be completed by April-May this year. But looking at the gap we have, we decided to enhance the annual number to one lakh per annum. The target will now be one lakh AWCs from 2016-17 - the coming financial year. So from now, in the next 4 years 4 lakh Aganwadis will be constructed by the government,” explained an official of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD).

Elucidating the cohesive work done by Ministries of WCD, and Panchayati Raj and Rural Development on the issue, the official said, “Last year in July, this issue was discussed and the WCD Ministry was looking at different ways of sorting out this problem. We also had a meeting with officials from the Ministry of Panchayati Raj and Rural Development regarding the issue. During the meet we decided that we will all pool our resources to build the AWCs. Panchayats and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) have some resources and we have some funds under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) which will be used for AWCs.”

Asked how the collaboration would be worked out, the WCD official said, “Under the MGNREGA, it is required that 60 percent of the money is spent on labour, that means it is paid as wages. The idea is to provide minimum 100 days of work to the rural population. In some districts they faced a problem where the material costs were going up for the construction of AWCs and was more than 40 percent. Wherever they have faced a deficit, that gap we are bridging from our funds.”

Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh told Millennium Post that funds can be sanctioned under the ‘labour component’ of MGNREGA. Singh had explained on how the convergence of the ministries would be implemented saying, “Various ministries including WCD have written to us regarding assistance under MGNREGA and we had said that assistance can be provided under the ‘labour component’ but land will be provided by the gram panchayats to them.”

Union WCD Minister Maneka Sanjay Gandhi has said, “There are presently 498 Aganwadi training centres established in the country. AWCs are being constructed under the MGNREGA to provide suitable centres from which the Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) can operate. We are also in touch with the World Bank to provide funds for training of AWWs, and equipping them with tablets as well as weighing devices.”

Giving details on the collaborative effort, Gandhi said, “Under MGNREGA, expenditure up to Rs 5 lakh per AWC building for construction will be allowed. Expenditure beyond Rs 5 lakh per AWC including finishing, flooring, painting, plumbing, electrification, etc. will be met from the ICDS.”
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