Anantapur: Anganwadi centres hit by poor supply of nutrient supplements

Anantapur-Puttaparthi: The nutrient supplements supplied under the ‘YSR Sampoorna Poshana’ to all ICDS projects by the Women and Child welfare department to pregnant and lactating mothers and children lay in shambles with inadequate stocks resulting in malnutrition among beneficiaries in the undivided district. The Anganwadi centres in the district are reportedly getting inadequate supply of the nutrient food supplements. During the past six months while the requirement is 7.98 lakh litres of milk to 5,130 Anganwadi centres in the undivided district, the supplies had been anywhere between 65 to 89 percent. This had resulted in supply of reduced quantity of supplements needed for children and pregnant and lactating women, landing many of them in malnutrition. This is negating the very mission of fighting malnutrition in the homes of below poverty line families. The irony is this is happening in the very district represented by the Women and Child Welfare minister Usha Sricharan.

If one should go into details of supplies, the indent placed to the authorities was for almost 8 lakh litres of milk since January but only 5 lakh plus litres were being supplied, which means a gap of roughly 2 lakh litres.

The ramifications of such a deficit supplies are evident and reflected on the beneficiaries’ health. This is apartment from the dilution of stocks by the selfish care takers. There are already complaints that these nutrient supplements are diverted to outside camps at various levels. So, one can understand the dimensions of the dilution going on especially in the given context of deliberately inadequate supply of the materiel against the norms fixed by the higher-ups themselves.

There are complaints that in the very Kalyandurgam division where the minister is resident, not a litre of milk was received in Singanamala, Rayadurgam and Kuderu regions while Kalyandurgam received 67 000 litres for 74,000 litres and Hindupur 64,000 for 71,000 litres. In the ongoing June season, the projects in Penukonda, Tadipatri and Singanamala have not received a single litre of milk.

In the Anantapur and Sathya Sai districts, there are 3.14 lakh beneficiaries including 7,000 pregnant women, 23,000 lactating mothers and 2.50 lakh children in the age-group of 0-6 years, who look unto the government every day to receive their share of nutrients to fight malnutrition. How can a project conceived to fight malnutrition be the cause and reason for malnutrition among the stakeholders is the question dogging one and all.