Malnourishment of children and burdening of
women pale beside the cry for expressways and airports.
Women workers carrying water, hay, firewood or bricks on their heads,
while at the same time carrying babies at their waist is accepted as
natural.
Half-naked children playing on sand heaps or older girls carrying
younger siblings while their mothers work is also considered
inevitable. None thinks that these are malaises inflicted on women and
children by a world dictated by men.
In the constant chorus and grandiose plans for “basic infrastructure”
considered deathly imperative by men, crèches or anganwadis to
relieve women from their burdens and provide care for young children,
never figure.
In crèches and Anganwadi Centres (AWC) of the Integrated Child
Development Scheme (ICDS) what does one see? Lo and behold! For want of
toys and a play-ground, bubbly 3-6-year-olds often sit motionless with
fingers on their lips and are mentally stunted for life. For want of
soap and water and balanced food, under-six children eat
“nutrition-free” bread or cereal with grubby unwashed hands, and
prepare for life-long malnourishment or death by diarrhoea. Those who
survive, continue the vicious cycle of poor hygiene and nutrition sense
and consequent high infant and maternal mortality rates.
For want of nappies and toilets, the “future citizens” of the country,
in whom all take much pride, create puddles all over the floor and
defecate into the road-side drain and get schooled in throwing garbage,
spitting and urinating everywhere even as adults.
A recent survey by UNESCO finds that 68 per cent of children were
malnourished in Raichur district. The National Family Health Survey
(NFHS) also shows that, despite 30 years of ICDS, the figure for
under-three underweight children fell only one per cent from 47 per
cent to 46 per cent between 1998-99 and 2004-05. Despite this shocking
situation in supposedly “Shining India”, only about one per cent of the
Union budget is spent on children under six years, who constitute 15
per cent.
The Right to Food case in the Supreme Court revealed that 74 per cent
of children entitled to the ICDS were left out of its net. The SC
directed that at least 14 lakh AWCs must be operationalised by December
2008 for the 14 crore children under six to universalise coverage, on
the basis of at least one AWC for every 1,000 population.
For every population of 1,000, there are likely to be 150 children
under six. Since there is only one anganwadi worker (AWW) and one
helper in each AWC currently to cater to these 150, the AWW is neither
able to do justice to the 0-3 year-olds through house visits, nor
provide quality pre-school education to the 3-6 year-olds at the AWC.
In a framework paper of June 2007, “Strategies for Children under Six”,
prepared for the Planning Commission, the authors Jean Dreze and others
plead that there should be two AWWs in every AWC, one to cater to the
0-3, and another to the 3-6 year-olds.
Also, there are six crore children under six of working mothers in need
of full-day crèche services. The authors recommend that, as a
beginning, 10 per cent of anganwadis could be converted to
anganwadi-cum-crèches during the Ninth Plan.
Over the years, the nutrition component at the AWC has got corrupted to
300 calories from cereals alone. Providing a hot, cooked, nutritionally
balanced meal, like the school midday meal, is essential, says the
paper, to make a dent on malnutrition.
Many oppose universalisation and advocate targeting of the ICDS only to
BPL children. The paper however argues that targeting usually leads to
eventual “dismantling” of the programme, as recently experienced with
the public distribution system. Targeting also undermines social
solidarity and is against the “rights approach”.
The above recommendations would require a budget of around Rs 30,000
crore, or just over 0.05 per cent of India’s GDP. If women are to be
relieved of the double burdens they carry on the head and at the waist,
and growing children provided a foundation more solid than a sand heap,
women will have to steer the budgeting process to provide for the
“infrastructure” that they need. And this investment will provide a 800
per cent return in terms of GDP growth, much more than that from
expressways and airports, the imperatives of men.
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Dec62007/panorama2007120539642.asp
