Few takers for Amrutha Hastham

Visakhapatnam: Anna Amrutha Hastham (AAH), the scheme introduced to provide spot feeding to the pregnant women, has been receiving poor response in the urban and semi-urban areas. Though the scheme has been registering good attendance in the Agency areas, the pregnant women are not paying interest to have the lunch in the Anganwadi Centres and sometimes quarrelling with the workers when they were not allowed to take the food home.

Highlights:

• Pregnant women reluctant to visit Anganwadi Centres
• Families not willing to send them to centres
• Less than 40 per cent attending Anganwadis

Earlier, the government distributed (take home rations) raw nutritious food items like rice, dal, oil and eggs. However, with the reports that the pregnant women are not properly having the diet at homes, the government started the AAH (spot feeding). The Angandai centre staff have been directed to cook and serve the lunch to the pregnant women and lactating women of the respected centre along with students.

Field studies with the scientific evidences showed that the pregnant women and lactating women were suffering from the malnutrition leading to anaemia and finally caesarean delivery. Hence, the government implemented the scheme by spending huge funds.

The officials of the Women and Child Welfare Development are also accepting the fact that with the starting of spot feeding scheme, the attendance has come down drastically, particularly in the urban and semi-urban areas. Due to various reasons, including communal differences and poor quality of food, the beneficiaries are not paying interest to have community lunch.
Even traffic hurdles to reach the centre and distance has been keeping off the pregnant women from Anganwadi Centres.

"Yes, it is true that there is very poor response from the pregnant women. After taking lunch they have to move immediately to homes as there are no facilities to take rest at the centres. Sometimes they are developing pain and stress while walking back homes. Scorching heat and rain are also important factors for the women to abscond the lunch. “We also need one assistant for company," one of the senior officials said while explaining the reasons behind the dropouts.

According to the statistics, in the Agency areas, almost 90 per cent of pregnant women are coming to the centres and having lunch. There is very little difference between the number of pregnant women who collected the raw material and having the spot lunch.

However, in the urban and semi-urban areas, about 50 per cent of pregnant and lactating women are not coming to the centres. There are 4,952 Anganwadi Centres are functioning in the district Chinmaya Devi, project director of Women and Child Welfare Development, accepted that good number of pregnant women are skipping the lunch.

However, awareness camps and interacting programmes are being held to motivate the women, she said.The problem is in urban and semi-urban areas only, she added. Recently, Joint Collector G Srijana directed the officials to improve the quality of rice to attract all the pregnant and lactating women to the centres.

The Commissioner of Women and Child Welfare Development H Arun Kumar also issued some directions to serve the lunch at their homes for women in advanced stage of pregnancy and lactating women for a month, Chinmaya Devi informed The Hans India.

By Jatlee Dontala