The Madhya Pradesh government has issued an order restricting anganwadi workers from being employed for duties not relating to the Integrated Child Development Services.
Centres’ performances
“Disciplinary action has been taken against workers for not performing other duties. This has affected performances of the centres and obstructed improvement of nutrition levels among children,” said a note from the General Administration Department.
“We had approached the GAD for the reiteration of a previous order restraining around 97,000 workers from carrying out extraneous duties,” State Women and Child Development Department Principal Secretary Anupam Rajan told The Hindu.
As an anganwadi worker is the lone worker at the grassroots level in every village, he said, often other departments get them to deliver services and verify documents. “Sometimes the work is more than required, and it may affect their teaching and the provision of childcare.”
Only during exceptional circumstances such as elections, however, they’d be assigned duties. “The process happens once in five years and is time-bound,” he said.
While 60% of the children under five were underweight in the State, according to the National Family Health Survey-3 (2005-2006), it came down to 42.8 % in the next survey (2015-2016).
