In the absence of any proper set-up for monitoring the Weekly Iron and Folic Acid Supplement (WIFS) scheme in the schools, the State health department does not have any record of the number of students benefited under the scheme. The scheme which is a part of Rashtriya Kishore Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK) aims to provide the tablets of iron and folic acid to the students of Government and aided schools to minimise the chances of anemia among them.
It is learnt that the officials of RKSK face problems in distribution of the tablets due to absence of coordination between the education and health department. However, what is most shocking that the State project office of RKSK do not have any record of the tablets disbursed under the scheme even after more than one year of its implementation in Uttarkhand. In the ongoing review workshop the officials of Uttrakhand were rebuked by the experts of Ministry of health and family welfare for not providing them the necessary data. It is learnt that the teachers initially were reluctant to keep a separate record of the tablets disbursed.
The state project officer RKSK, Archana Srivastava accepted that the record is not available with the department. She however added that the department has now decided to pay `1,000 per month to the data entry operator of Mid Day Meal (MDM) scheme to update and upload the data of WIFS. She said that department faces problem in transporting the tablets in the schools located in remote and mountainous areas.
The performance of the state is not good in Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics (AFHC) which are setup in the districts of Dehradun, Udham Singh Nagar, Nainital, Pauri, Tehri and Haridwar districts. There are 60 such clinics where the adolescent are provided counseling. However due to lack of proper awareness very few people are visiting these clinics so much so that in the district like Dehradun only 22 persons on an average visit a clinic in a month.