[Reader-list] RTF (Right to Food) Articles - 11
Rakesh Iyer
rakesh.rnbdj at gmail.com
Tue Aug 11 18:40:52 IST 2009
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 17, 2006 [image: Google] <http://www.google.com/>
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* ICDS — The entitlement of every Indian child *
Nirmala Lakshman
* The role of ICDS as an instrument to secure children's right to food
cannot be overstated. In States like Tamil Nadu, its functioning has yielded
positive results. *
A RECENT broad spectrum poll by Reuters that placed India as being the
sixth most dangerous place in the world for children is in some ways
uncomfortably close to the truth. Danger to children's lives need not
necessarily come from gunfire or from buried landmines; nearly half the
children who die in early childhood in India do so from malnutrition. India
has a staggeringly high rate of children suffering from malnutrition. One in
three malnourished children of the world lives in India, and malnutrition is
more common here than in Sub-Saharan Africa. Figures of under-five
mortality, underweight children, primary school enrolment, and basic health
indicators have not shown any substantial improvement over the last decade.
In fact, many of these indices record a downslide that underlines ironically
the precariousness of childhood in one of the fastest growing economies of
the world.
The consequences of early childhood malnutrition are well known and include
physical and mental impairment that severely affect a child's growth and
development. Civil society's response to crises like persistent hunger,
malnutrition, corruption, the lack of accountability and poor governance has
grown over the last few years, for instance through successful application
of the Right to Information and the Rural Employment Guarantee Act. However,
the lack of attention from policy makers and elected representatives to the
grave and burgeoning crisis of malnutrition continues. This is clearly
reflected in the status of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS),
whose functioning is uneven in States across the country. ICDS includes
immunisation, supplementary nutrition, health and nutrition education,
growth monitoring, pre-school education and referral services. In States
like Tamil Nadu, its functioning has yielded positive results. It is the
only programme that extends from pregnant women and nursing mothers to cover
infants and children up to the age of six. Its role as an instrument to
secure children's right to food cannot be overstated.
The right to food is included in the right to life, an inviolable right as
guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court in a
historic judgment in November 2001 recognised that the right to food is
justiciable, and that governments have a duty to prevent hunger,
malnutrition and starvation. The judgment came in the wake of severe
droughts and starvation deaths while buffer stocks were rotting in the Food
Corporation of India (FCI) warehouses. Among other orders, the Court ordered
that the ICDS must be made universal to cover *every Indian child under the
age of six years*. Universalization of the ICDS means that every habitation
should have a functional *anganwadi* centre (AWC) and apart from children
below six, the services should cover all adolescent girls as well as
pregnant women and nursing mothers. In 2004, the Supreme Court gave further
directions on strengthening the ICDS.
Late last month, two Commissioners appointed by the Supreme Court, N.C.
Saxena and Harsh Mander, submitted their update report on the progress
towards universalization of the ICDS. They expressed grave concern that the
orders of the Court have not been implemented and, worse, the Government has
"challenged the basic principles of universalization outlined in these
orders." This contradicts the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's
commitment in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) which states that "the UPA
will universalize the ICDS scheme to provide a functional *anganwadi* in
every settlement and ensure full coverage of all children." Currently there
are only about 7 lakh *anganwadis* across the country. The Commissioners
state that even a conservative estimate of the requirement of 14 lakh AWCs
submitted to the Court was not accepted by the Government of India, and in
early 2006 the Government rejected the figure stating that it was based on a
survey of drinking water facilities in which every population cluster of 250
persons is considered a separate habitation. The Commissioners point out
that with such a ratio (population to AWCs), the number of AWCs will
actually stand at a higher number, that is about 40 lakh. The figure of 14
lakh based on an old official norm of one AWC for every 1000 persons is in
itself grossly inadequate.
The National Advisory Council (NAC) had also submitted a report to the
Government of India which found that 14 lakh AWCs would be required in rural
areas and another 3 lakh in urban areas. The Commissioners' report says that
although the official norm of one AWC per 1000 persons has been "accepted,"
it is in reality not at all adequate. They explain that based on the 2001
Census figures, a habitation of 1000 persons would have around 150-160
children below six, 35-40 pregnant women or nursing mothers and 75-80
adolescent girls. How then, they ask, will it be possible for a single *
anganwadi* worker to provide services to such a large number? Even if a
second *anganwadi* worker is posted in each AWC, as numerous evaluations
have recommended, the norm of one AWC per 1000 would be quite conservative.
Another serious lacuna according to the Commissioners is that the Government
of India failed to specify the time frame within which the ICDS would be
extended to all children below six as directed by the Supreme Court. Given
the mammoth nature of the task, the Commissioners suggest a one-year time
frame for covering all Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) hamlets and
three years for universal coverage. The percentage of undernourished
children among these populations stands at 53.5 per cent and 55.9 per cent
respectively. They also stress the need to extend ICDS services to children
living in urban slums, such as the children of migrant workers who may not
have proper addresses or identity documents. Exemplifying this view, recent
data from ICDS shows that in Mumbai over 50 per cent of the under-six are
malnourished, with a large proportion suffering from severe malnutrition.
Food insecurity is therefore a growing phenomenon, with islands of
deprivation in the midst of an ocean of plenty.
Considerable difference
However, as a field survey called Focus On Children Under Six (FOCUS)
conducted in 2004 in six States revealed, an effective ICDS programme can
make a considerable difference in the lives of nutritionally compromised
children. For instance, the ICDS functioning in Tamil Nadu, when compared to
five other States, (Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and
Himachal Pradesh) was far better in terms of indicators such as longer
opening hours, the number of infants in the under three age group who attend
regularly, basic infrastructure facilities and salaries paid regularly to
the AWC workers. The quality of services including pre-school education,
supplementary nutrition, health and immunisation services was found to be
satisfactory by nearly 90 per cent of the mothers who used these services.
According to economist Jean Dreze, who was associated with the FOCUS survey,
one reason for the success of ICDS in Tamil Nadu is that "women have helped
to make health and nutrition political issues, and also hold the system
accountable". Anuradha Rajivan, currently senior economist with the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says that "Tamil Nadu politics has
retained the combating of hunger and malnutrition as one of its priorities,
well before judicial intervention triggered responses at the Centre" adding
that the State "is on the verge of establishing child rights to nutrition
security," and emphasising that malnutrition "is a problem wider than
poverty."
The emergence of a rights perspective with regard to the well-being of
children has a direct effect on policy implementation as the example of
Tamil Nadu so aptly demonstrates. Ms. Rajivan calls this a `sandwich'
situation where pressure from above in the form of political will and
pressure from below through wide public acceptance and expectation, with a
wide network of services in between sustains these programmes. The FOCUS
survey reveals that other States like Maharashtra are also catching up with
Tamil Nadu. Other studies suggest that in States like Jharkhand and Bihar,
already plagued by issues of poor governance, the ICDS has not fared well
and has even faced severe disruptions. The Food Insecurity Atlas of Rural
India, an initiative of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF),
suggests that in some States like Rajasthan the poorest are actually not
even covered by the programme. Dispersed marginal households and tribal
hamlets tend to get left out. The patchiness of the current state of ICDS
notwithstanding, "the FOCUS survey draws attention to the enormous potential
of ICDS," as Jean Dreze puts it. "The sensible way to go," he says, "is to
make better use of this potential, given that the foundations of ICDS are
already in place throughout the country."
The universalization of the ICDS as the Court-appointed Commissioners
pointed out has to be a time and action bound programme with improved norms
consistent with the idea that all children and eligible women will have
access to its services. It is also imperative that the ICDS remain a
government programme without any invasion of private interests. The UPA
Government must adhere to the commitment made in the CMP on the
universalization of the ICDS. The UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, in a recent
speech said, "It is now time for aggressive political activism on behalf of
children", and this must happen. The legal enforcement of state
accountability, policy initiatives by State Governments and public activism
are all required to push this agenda firmly forward to establish the
entitlements of the nation's children.
* *
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