Jharkhand Anganwadi institutions have played a crucial role in eliminating malnutrition among women and children, Rajya Sabha MP Mahesh Poddar said on Friday.

Convergence with MNREGA across the State has resulted in the construction of new Anganwadi Centres while the old ones are being renovated. Another positive aspect is that these centres are corruption free in comparison to those in other states, he added.

Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Zubin Irani provided this information while answering questions raised by Poddar.

The Minister further stated that under the Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS), Anganwadi is a centrally sponsored scheme. The scheme is running through 7,075 centrally active projects as well as over 13.77 Lakh centres across the nation. 

From January 2019 to November 2019, the Ministry has so far received around 141 cases of complaints or disputes with regards to the Anganwadi Centres of Jharkhand along with those of the entire country.

The maximum cases have been registered from the State of Uttar Pradesh with 30 complaints of corruption and other malpractices in Anganwadi and other associated services. Bihar stands in the second position with 25 such complaints. Jharkhand has had only five such cases reported over this time period.

Irani further informed that Jharkhand was granted Rs 40 crore in the year 2015- 16 under MNREGA for the construction of AWC Buildings and Rs 24 crore has been sanctioned in the year 2016- 17. The State was granted a sum of Rs 50 crore and this year Rs 60 crore was sanctioned.

Apart from this Rs 9.60 Crore has also been sanctioned for the renovation id Anganwadi Centre buildings.