The nutrition drive would run in 10,000 more villages of the State, 8,000 old and 5,895 new anganwadi centres would be developed into child-friendly centres, shourya teams would be formed in 14 districts, the Women and Child Development Minister of the State, Maya Singh, told the Assembly on Monday while replying on the budgetary demands of her departments.
Singh said there is enormous decline in the cases of malnutrition and infant mortality rate in the State.
Soon after the Minister’s reply, the budgetary demands of `2,589 crore 88 lakh 61 thousand of the Women and Child Development Department were cleared by the House. An increment of `368 crore has been made this year in the budget of the department.
Singh said that seeing the success of the nutrition drive it is being extended. The drive has benefited over 36,000 children through 3,170 Sneh camps. Anganwadi centres would be made more attractive so that children go there happily. For this purpose, new buildings would be constructed besides making old building more comfortable. A provision of `4,57.52 crore has been made for the construction of new anganwadi buildings in the new Budget. By 2018 over 80 per cent anganwadi centres in all the districts would be run in Government buildings, she added.
She said that under the Tejaswini scheme shourya teams were constituted in six districts, the results of
that were found to be good due to which it has been decided to extend the scheme in 14 more districts. For providing medical assistance and shelter to the victimised women, Usha Kiran Centre’s Nirbhaya would be established in Gwalior and Indore, she added.
The Women and Child Development Minister said that under the Sanjha Chulha programme cooks would be provided `500 per month besides self help groups would be provided `500 per month. To monitor the health of infants, children development cards would be prepared.
Training would be provided to 45,000 Sakhi Saheli in the Sabla scheme in 36 districts of the State where Kishori Shakti scheme is already running. This would be an innovative experiment and probably would be done for the first time in the country, she added.