Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Sep. 4: According to a report from the Ministry of Women and Child Development dated August 9 2019, a total of INR 10.61 crore has been directed to be released in the form of grant-in-aid from the Centre to the state’s department of Social Welfare. This aid will be for the continued implementation of the Anganwadi Services Scheme (AWSS) and comes as part of the second instalment for the months of August and September.
The AWSS is a centrally-sponsored scheme in which the centre and state both have contributions, and for the north-eastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland, the ratio is 90:10, the former being the Centre.
In Nagaland, the Integrated Child Development Services Scheme (ICDS) falls under the AWSS under the department of Social Welfare.
According to 2018 reports from the Directorate of Information and Publicity (DIPR), a total of 3.5 lakh persons are said to be enrolled under the ICDS in 3980 Anganwadi Centres (AWC) across Nagaland. There are currently 60 ICDS projects and nine district ICDS cells operating in the state.
The report informed that the beneficiaries are children in the age group of 0-6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
The other objectives of the scheme are to provide supplementary nutrition, immunisation, health check up, referral services, pre-school non-formal education, nutrition and health education.
Under the scheme, DIPR report also informed that a mobile training unit under the ICDS training programme known as the Anganwadi Workers Training Centre (AWTC) is attached.
According to updated records, the AWTC has completed 104 job training courses and 72 refresher courses for Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) and 17 orientation training for Anganwadi Helpers (AWHs). 3640 AWWs were imparted with the job training course, 2880 with the refresher course and 850 AWHs were imparted with orientation courses, it informed.
On February 18 2019, a total of INR 5,64,32,000 was directed to be sanctioned as grant-in-aid to Nagaland towards the revised rates (effective from October 2018) as honorarium per month to AWWs and AWHs as fourth quarter for the year 2018-19.
The revised monthly rate for AWWs is INR 4500, INR 3500 for AWWs in mini Anganwadi Centres is and INR 2500 for AWHs.
