Govt to alter ICDS plan to fight malnutrition in women, children

The Centre is contemplating a paradigm change in its scheme ---Integrated Child Development Services(ICDS)--- to take on the final battle against the problem of malnutrition in infants and women in the country, official sources said today.According to Ministry of Women & Child Development sources, the government has initiated a dialogue with state regimes and ministries concerned to bring about a change in this scheme.

For this, recently, the chief secretaries and secretaries holding charge of Women & Child Development in states held a national seminar in which analyses of women care, children care related plans were deliberated upon.

The government will go in a for a complete overhaul of the ICDS programme in view of the level of malnutrition among women and children. The Ministry of Women & Child Development along with NITI Aayog, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Human Resource Development Ministry and other ministries is working on a war-footing to overcome the problem of malnutrition. In this direction, Anganwaris are being digitalised, and every child, pregnant women and lactating mothers are being held under scrutiny for a particular time period. Children up to the age of six years are covered under the ICDS scheme.