By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: State Social Welfare Minister Deborah Marak who met the Union Minister of state (Independent Charge) for Women and Child Development Krishna Tirath in New Delhi recently urged her to open 1072 Anganwadi centres in the State which has been pending since 2009-2010.
The state government had identified 1072 villages to be covered under ICDS and had submitted the proposals for additional Anganwadi centres since 2009-10, but till date, no response has been received from the union government.
According to Marak, a proposal to construct another 1596 Anganwadi buildings has been submitted to the government of letter recently while informing that at present, out of 3922 operationalized Anganwadi centres, only 2326 are functioning from government owned buildings.
ICDS, which is one of the major flagship programme of the Union government for the holistic development of women and children is implemented in all the 39 C & RD blocks and 2 urban areas of Meghalaya.
“We have not been able to cover all the targeted villages which have been identified to achieve the population norms of the Union government”, the social welfare minister said while highlighting the need to expand the programme to all the uncovered villages to achieve universalization of ICDS.
While laying special emphasis on the need for regular monitoring and supervision of the activities at the ICDS village by the project officers, Marak informed that the department has projected in the budget 2013-2014 for procurement of 35 numbers of new vehicles.
“The officials at the project level faces challenges in performing their regular duties due to lack of transportation and communication problems in this hilly region of the State”, she asserted.
