In a first-of-its-kind approach, Ministry has extended the services of childcare through Anganwadi cum Crèche
Anganwadi workers are technologically empowered with the provision of smartphones for efficient monitoring and service delivery under Mission Poshan 2.0
Provision of performance-linked incentives for Anganwadi workers and helpers for growth measurement, home visits and opening of Anganwadi centre
NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 07, 2025: The Government’s sustained initiatives on education, skilling and employment of women have resulted in increased opportunities for their employment, and more and more women are now in gainful employment, working within or outside their homes. Growing industrialization and urbanisation have also led to increased migration into the cities. Past few decades have shown a rapid increase in nuclear families. Thus, the children of such working women, who were earlier getting support from joint families while they were at work, are now in need of day care services which have to provide quality care and protection for the children. The lack of proper day-care services is, often, a deterrent for women to go out and work. Hence, there is an urgent need for improved quality and reach of daycare services/crèches for working women amongst all socioeconomic groups both in the organized and unorganized sectors.
To address these difficulties faced by the working mothers in giving due child care and protection to their children, daycare crèche facilities are being provided through the Palna Scheme. Crèche services formalise the childcare responsibilities hitherto considered as part of domestic work. Formalization of care work supports the “decent work campaign” to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 8 – Decent work and economic growth. This will also enable more mothers, who will be free from unpaid child-care responsibilities, to take up gainful employment.
Anganwadi centres are the world’s largest childcare institutions dedicated to providing essential care and support to children ensuring delivery of care facilities till the last mile. In a first-of-its-kind approach, Ministry has extended the services of childcare through Anganwadi cum Crèche (AWCC). This will ensure whole-day childcare support ensuring their well-being in a safe and secure environment. Anganwadi cum Crèche initiative aims to increase ‘women workforce participation’ in the economy. The objective of Palna Scheme is to provide quality crèche facilities in a safe and secure environment for children (from ages 6 months – 6 years), nutritional support, health and cognitive development of children, growth monitoring & immunization. Crèche facilities under Palna are provided to all mothers, irrespective of their employment status.
Palna is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme ensuring the participation of State/ UT government to ensure better day-to-day monitoring and proper implementation of the scheme, and is implemented with a funding ratio of 60:40 between Centre and State Governments and UTs with legislature except for North East & Special Category States where ratio is 90:10. For UTs without legislature, 100% funding is provided by the central government.
Proposals for the establishment and operation of AWCCs are received from the respective State Governments/UT Administrations. As of date, a total of 11,395 AWCCs have been approved as per proposals received from various States/UTs.
Anganwadi workers are technologically empowered with the provision of smartphones for efficient monitoring and service delivery under Mission Poshan 2.0
Poshan Abhiyaan, an overarching scheme for holistic nourishment was launched on 8th March 2018 to improve nutritional outcomes for children, adolescents, pregnant women and lactating mothers. Under Poshan Abhiyaan, Incremental Learning Approach (ILA) was incorporated in order to build and strengthen the capacity of Anganwadi workers. Under the 15th Finance Commission, to address the challenge of malnutrition, various components like Anganwadi services, Poshan Abhiyaan and Scheme for Adolescent girls (of 14-18 years in Aspirational Districts and North-Eastern region) have been subsumed under the umbrella Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 (Mission Poshan 2.0).
Under Mission Poshan 2.0, Anganwadi workers (AWWs) have been technologically empowered with the provision of smartphones for efficient monitoring and service delivery. IT systems have been leveraged to strengthen and bring about transparency in nutrition delivery support systems at the Anganwadi centres and for dynamic identification of stunting, wasting, and under-weight prevalence among children (0-6 years). It has facilitated near real-time data collection for Anganwadi Services such as daily attendance, Early childhood care and Education (ECCE), Provision of Hot Cooked Meal (HCM)/Take Home Ration (THR-not raw ration), Growth Measurement etc. This application is working as a job aid for Anganwadi Worker replacing the need for maintaining physical registers; thereby reducing her workload.
The learning modules on nutrition and early care and education for capacity building of all Anganwadi workers are readily available online on Poshan Tracker.
Further, Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi (PBPB) initiative was launched on 10th May, 2023 for upskilling of all Anganwadi workers to build their capacity to provide early childhood care and nutrition service to children below six years of age. As on date, 31,114 SLMTs (CDPOs, Supervisors and Additional Resource Persons) and 145,481 AWWs have been trained across the country under Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi programme.
One of the key program elements of Mission Poshan 2.0 is incentivizing Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) and Anganwadi Helpers (AWHs) monthly for optimal delivery of nutrition and health services and supporting behaviour change. There is a provision of performance-linked incentives of Rs 500/- per month and Rs 250/- per month for Anganwadi workers and Anganwadi helpers respectively for growth measurement, home visits and opening of Anganwadi centres.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Women and Child Development Savitri Thakur in Lok Sabha in reply to a question on February 07, 2025.
