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and monitoring, poor cold chain maintenance and ongoing campaign mode programmes
disrupting routine activities…’ (Planning Commission, GOI, 2000-01).
Role of community groups and listening to voices of children:
There is today a multiplicity of village level groups and committees with competing goals and
overlapping roles. To seriously address crucial factors that facilitate / impede the overall
development and growth of children, it is vital to re-examine the roles / mandate of these
committees and look for ways to empower specific groups of people to play a more positive
interventionist role in ensuring that benefits accrue to those most in need. The enthusiasm with
which these committees are constituted is rarely matched by resources / activities to educate and
empower them.
It is thus necessary to pay special attention to the process of constitution of committees and
strengthen training / capacity building activities that are necessary to give them the teeth – to
make the difference. This applies to all the committees established for primary education / child
development at the village level.
Education, nutrition and welfare schemes of the government need an extraordinary amount of
individual attention. Given the size of the problem, and the complexity of issues involved – there
is no other alternative. In addition to decentralization of authority and responsibility for spending
money, programmes need to have much smaller 'beneficiary' groups than at present. Where there
is one aanganwadi, we probably need four. Of course, these four aanganwadi, or four primary
schools, will be plagued with the same problems of non-attendance of AWW/AWH and the like,
but that is a matter of administration. There is no lack of people who are ready to work – but it is
important that they get out of the typical sarkari naukri (government service) mentality. Where
the parent is unable to provide the necessary support for education or is incapable of doing so, the
primary school teacher has to assume some surrogate responsibilities. Similarly, the aanganwadi
worker needs to have greater empathy and reach out to children who are in dire need of proper
nutrition and pre-school education. They have to transform themselves into ‘professional care-
givers', working with and giving attention to fewer numbers of children. This is especially true for
children in diverse poverty situations. All this does not only mean more resources, but a lot more
care and attention. Can we not involve mothers in the nutrition component of ICDS programme
Educational Resource Unit Page 99 April 2003