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women who are pregnant and those who are nursing babies to provide on the spot advise. In the
two villages studied in UP, the AWWs did not report of any visits of the supervisor to their
centres, even though both of them were untrained. They went for monthly meetings, in the third
week of every month, to the Block office to submit their reports and show their registers. This
was also an opportunity to receive guidance and collect funds. The focus of monitoring was
mainly on the distribution of supplementary nutrition rather than on the educational activities,
health measurements and monitoring of children and information/guidance to women at the
AWC.
In neither state did the Panchayat play any role in monitoring the ICDS programme.
Summing Up:
As children reach the pre-school age, education and access to education becomes a defining
variable in framing their life-chances along with health and nutrition. It is an exploratory phase on
the child development continuum, where pre-school exposure and adequate nutrition (as an
integral part of service delivery) become essential inputs to further the holistic development of
children. Evidence from the ground indicates a rather contrary picture, marked by erratic
provision of nutrition by the state and a rather weak and ineffective pre-school component.
Politics of caste identity and status too emerges as an important factor in denying access to
children and parents to the nutrition supplements and the effective functioning of the AWCs.
These detrimental practices persist in the absence of effective monitoring strategies as well lack
of positive synergy with other grassroots social delivery apparatuses – be it state-sponsored or
NGO initiatives.
Educational Resource Unit Page 53 April 2003