New Delhi: A total of 2 lakh Anganwadi Centres across the country have been approved for upgradation as Saksham Anganwadis with improved nutrition and early childhood care and education till December last year, Annpurna Devi, Union Minister for Women and Child Development, told the Parliament on Friday.
Under Mission Poshan 2.0, two lakh Anganwadi Centres located in Government buildings at 40,000 AWCs per year are strengthened as Saksham Anganwadis.
“Saksham Anganwadis are provided with better infrastructure than the conventional Anganwadi centres with LED screens, water filtration system, Poshan Vatika, ECCE material, and BALA paintings,” Devi said, while answering a query in the Lok Sabha.
The Minister said that under Saksham Anganwadi and Mission Poshan 2.0, IT systems have been leveraged to strengthen and bring about transparency in nutrition delivery support systems at the Anganwadi Centres.
In addition, the ‘Poshan Tracker’ application was rolled out to facilitate monitoring and tracking of all AWCs, Anganwadi Workers (AWWs), and beneficiaries on defined indicators.
“Technology under Poshan Tracker is also being leveraged for dynamic identification of stunting, wasting, and under-weight prevalence among children,” Devi said.
It has also facilitated near real-time data collection for Anganwadi Services, such as opening and closing of AWCs, daily attendance of children, growth monitoring of children, early childhood care and education (ECCE) activities, delivery of hot cooked meal (HCM)/take home ration (THR-not raw ration), growth measurement, etc.
The App also offers counselling videos on key behaviours and services which help disseminate messages on birth preparedness, delivery of the child, post-natal care, breastfeeding, and complementary feeding.
Further, for last-mile tracking of Service Delivery, a Facial Recognition System (FRS) has been developed in the Poshan Tracker Application for the distribution of Take-Home Ration to ensure that benefit is given only to the intended beneficiary registered in Poshan Tracker.
(IANS)
