Anganwadi

CASPR aspires to strengthen the infrastructure of Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) in Maharashtra which stands as an essential system in the society, especially in rural areas and for the underprivileged section. Maharashtra house about 1,08,005 Anganwadi centres (AWC) including mini AWCs, with a staff of around two lakh Anganwadi sevikas/helpers/workers and over 4,000 supervisors. AWCs are government-aided centres started in 1975 under the Intergrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Schemes run by the Women and Child Development department of central and state governments. These centres are preschool facilities for children of poor families in rural and urban areas. These centres are primarily responsible to provide healthcare services including facilitating nutrition-care, child immunization, early childhood education among several other projects implemented by the government.

The sole purpose of AWCs is to create an affordable and accessible healthcare system for locals of villages/rural/remote areas and provide preschool education to children between the ages group 3-6 years old. Unfortunately, even after 45 years, AWC despite holding great importance in the cognitive development to shape and ease the future growth of young children at the early stage itself remains highly neglected in the country. Several AWCs are run at Anganwadi workers’ house or public places where the minimum facility of toilet and drinking water is available, due to lack of space or are located in an old dilapidated buildings. These centres lack several facilities like a proper playground for children, often education takes a backfoot and mostly it operates for nutritional needs only. About 37,500 AWCs in the state operate from a private building.

The Anganwadi sevikas are trained to provide primary healthcare services from assisting senior citizens to pregnant women to taking care of the nutrition intake of the new mother and newborn and many more. AWCs also run mid-day meals for children under the ICDS scheme. However, it has also been observed that many AWCs lack qualified workers/helpers at the centres.

According to research studies on AWCs, it dignifies another importance in society-- women empowerment. The mothers of children enrolled in the AWCs get an opportunity to pick up work and earn their respect in the house and livelihood. The majority of the staff at AWCs are also women who are able to support their families. Nevertheless, it also ensures that the older siblings do not stay at home taking care of their younger ones, and reducing the percentage of missing out on school education and childhood.