After receiving several complaints of corruption from States and Union territories, most recent case being that of Maharashtra, Ministry of Woman and Child Development has asked States to strictly adhere to the system of e-procurement of goods under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS).
Under the ICDS programme, which is the feeder scheme for all Anganwadi centres, the States are required to procure medicine kits, pre-school education kits, weighing scale and take-home ration under the supplementary nutrition programme of the Centre.
Earlier this month, the WCD Ministry had issued notices to all the States and Union Territories asking them to “ensure e-procurement of goods under the ICDS scheme with threshold value of Rs1lakh.” The order also asks the states to submit a compliance report at the earliest.
“Most of the Government procurements across departments are now being done through digitally. The Minister (Maneka Gandhi) is keen that we follow the e-procurement system for our ICDS programme as it will add transparency in purchases, thus ending corruption,” said an official from the WCD Ministry.
“Ministry of Commerce had drawn up guidelines in December, 2014 and then in March 2015. We are only asking states to adopt the prescribed procedures, so that all procurements are streamlined. This will make the auditing process very simple as all transactions will be moved online,” said the official.
Only in June this year, Maharashtra state’s woman and child development Minister Pankaja Munde was dragged into a controversy, regarding her alleged involvement in irregularities in awarding contracts worth Rs 206 crore, under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme.
Munde came under attack from the opposition for not following norms for purchase of material for anganwadi schools- workbooks for students, water filters, growth monitoring machines for malnourished kids, medicines and chikkis (sweet cookies with nuts and dryfruits in a jaggery base).