New Delhi, Sep 2 (IANS) The Union government will on Wednesday issue guidelines on co-location of anganwadi centres with schools, an effort aimed at building robust foundation for the human capital of ‘Viksit Bharat’ (developed India), an official said on Tuesday.

The guidelines will be issued by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in collaboration with the Department of School Education and Literacy under the Ministry of Education.

Union Women and Child Development Minister, Annpurna Devi, and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will be present on the occasion.

This initiative will mark a significant step towards implementing the vision of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi of building robust foundation for the human capital of ‘Viksit Bharat’, an official statement said.

The guidelines emphasise the importance of early childhood care and education through integrated models, including co-located anganwadis and schools.

With more than 2.9 lakh anganwadi centres already co-located with schools, these guidelines will provide much-needed operational clarity and enable states and Union Territories (UTs) to scale up the model effectively, the statement added.

The event will also be attended by senior officers from Ministry of Women and Child Development, Department of School Education and Literacy, representatives of both Departments from States/UTs, including anganwadi workers.

As per government data on Poshan Tracker Data till June 2025, West Bengal (1,18,680) and Uttar Pradesh (1,17,788) top the list of anganwadis which operated for at least 80 per cent of working days.

Various rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare since 1992-93 have shown improvement in malnutrition indicators in children across India.

The NFHS-5, conducted between 2019-21, showed that 35.5 per cent children showed signs of stunting, 32.1 per cent were underweight and 19.3 per cent suffering from wasting.

The projected population of all children up to five years in India for the year 2021 is around 13.75 crore (Source: population projections for India and states 2011-2036, National Commission on Population, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare).

However, only 7.36 crore children up to five years were enrolled in anganwadis and registered on Poshan Tracker of the Ministry of Women and Child Development as per the June 2025 data.

Nearly seven crore of these children were measured on growth parameters of height and weight.

Around 37.07 per cent of them have been found to be stunted, 15.93 have been found to be underweight and 5.46 per cent wasted.

–IANS

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