New Delhi, Oct 2 (IANS) In an apparent jibe at the current dispensation, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Thursday rued that the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme, launched during Indira Gandhi government, which has undergone subsequent name changes, “failed” to achieve a breakthrough.

Jairam Ramesh said that the ICDS was launched by the then PM Indira Gandhi 50 years ago on this day, but it has “failed” to live up to its promises despite undergoing “‘rechristening and rebranding” a couple of times.

Taking to his X handle, the Congress Communications in-charge said, “The ICDS has since been renamed and subsumed under the Mission Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0. Unfortunately, the governance of the scheme has not kept pace with the name change.”

Highlighting the achievements and milestones achieved under the scheme, he said, “Today, there are 13.96 lakh Anganwadi Centers across the country which provide early education, health, and nutrition services to more than 7.65 crore children across the country.”

“Over the decades, the ICDS has been critical to the tremendous improvement in our human development indicators. It is one of the largest – if not the largest – child welfare programmes in the world,” he added.

He also stated that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Women and Child Development under the Chairmanship of Congress leader Digvijay Singh made several key recommendations for strengthening the ICDS.

Jairam Ramesh further informed that these recommendations made their way into the Congress Nyay Patra for the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections, which were as follows:

*Doubling the wages of the Anganwadi workers and helpers

*Hiring an additional worker for every Anganwadi center to focus exclusively on early childhood care and education

*Allocating sufficient funds for the ICDS, including the revision of cost norms for Anganwadi services – which was supposed to have occurred in FY20-21 but has still not occurred despite being promised in the Finance Minister’s Budget Speech earlier this year

*Extension of Anganwadi services to include day-care and creche services for children above 6 months of age

*Increasing the number of Anganwadis in line with the estimated population of the country in 2025, rather than relying on Census 2011 figures

*Provision of hot cooked meals rather than take-home rations for all eligible beneficiaries of Anganwadi services

–IANS

mr/svn