Human Development in India - NCAER

social safety nets in india 201THE ICDSLaunched in 1975, the ICDS is a nationwide programme tobuild nutrition, health, and educational levels among preschoolchildren, and among expectant and nursing mothers.The ICDS programme provides an integrated set of services,including supplementary nutrition, preschool education,immunization, health check-ups, referral services, and healtheducation, in millions of local anganwadi centres. Initiallythe programme focused on the poor living in backward areas,especially tribal areas and urban slums. However, the ICDShas expanded significantly and is now available to all households,regardless of poverty or caste status. By March 2005,7.1 lakh anganwadis were reported as operational, serving4.8 cr children with nutritional services and 2.2 cr childrenwith preschool education.The IHDS asked one woman in each household, with atleast one child born since January 2000, whether she or herchildren had ever received any ICDS services. This is a smallersample (10,428), so these estimates have a larger samplingerror than estimates based on other statistics reported earlier.Overall, about 35 per cent of households with a child bornsince 2000 had received some ICDS services, 22 per centhad received maternity related services, and 35 per cent hadreceived services for children. For a 30 year old programme,this is disappointing coverage.Rural areas have more than twice the coverage of urbanareas. Twenty six per cent of rural mothers and 41 per centof rural children received some ICDS service, comparedwith 11 per cent of urban mothers and 18 per cent of urbanchildren. Given limited resources, a rural bias is an effectiveapproach. Nevertheless, there is enormous room for expansion,in both urban and rural areas.State differences reveal great gaps among state governmentsin how they have been able to mobilize resourcesto provide ICDS services. In Tamil Nadu, 75 per cent ofeligible households participate in ICDS. Only 7 per cent doso in Bihar. Only Tamil Nadu has made a significant impactin towns and cities with 58 per cent of urban householdsreceiving the services. In no other state does urban ICDScoverage reach even 30 per cent. Some wealthy statescover the majority of households (for example, Haryanaat 68 per cent), but so do some poor states (for example,Chhattisgarh at 62 per cent and Orissa at 67 per cent). Poorstates like Bihar have weak ICDS coverage (7 per cent), butso does rich Punjab (8 per cent).Compared to the substantial state and urban–ruralvariation in ICDS services, differences among households arerelatively minor. In villages, the poorest fifth of householdsparticipate only slightly more (44 per cent) than the highestincome fifth (39 per cent), although the difference is greaterin urban places (33 per cent versus 12 per cent). In villages,forward castes, OBCs, and Dalits have almost identicalICDS usage (42 per cent), but Adivasis are especially wellserved (63 per cent). Coverage among minority religions,however, is below the average coverage in rural areas with28 per cent for Muslims and 16 per cent for other religions.In urban areas, the group differences are much smaller, andAdivasis have lower ICDS coverage (14 per cent) than theurban average (19 per cent). Although the class and groupdifferences are smaller than the state and urban–ruraldifferences, it is reassuring that, in general, the poorer andmore disadvantaged sectors have the highest ICDS coverage.Although the ICDS is no longer a targeted programme, thesomewhat higher coverage of the poor and disadvantagedreflects the programme’s origins.FOOD FOR WORK AND SAMPOORNA GRAMEENROZGAR YOJANAThe Food for Work Programme started in January 2001 aspart of the Employment Assurance Scheme in eight droughtaffected states. It provides wage employment and foodsupplements for rural infrastructure projects. Preference isgiven to labour intensive projects, especially those that wouldhelp relieve droughts like Water conservation, watersheddevelopment, water harvesting, de-silting of village ponds,and construction of rural kaccha roads. After the IHDSwas fielded, the government greatly expanded its ruralemployment efforts through the employment guaranteescheme. Results from those efforts are not reflected in theIHDS results.The IHDS found 330 individuals who reported workunder Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) or foodfor work programme in the past year. The great majority ofthese cases (80 per cent) came from Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,Madhya Pradesh, and Orissa. The typical worker wasemployed for 30 days and was paid Rs 50 per day.Almost all SGRY workers are rural, and three-quartersare men. Most (71 per cent) are in the poorest quintile ofhousehold assets (although only 34 per cent are in the poorestincome quintile, suggesting that current incomes mayhave benefited from participation by usually poor households).Their educational attainments are remarkably similarto those of most rural workers. Most are 20–49 years old,very similar to the age structure of all rural workers. Adivasisare overrepresented (31 per cent compared to 11 per cent ofother rural workers), forward castes (4 per cent comparedwith 17 per cent of other rural workers), and minorityreligions (3 per cent compared to 11 per cent of other ruralworkers) are underrepresented.TARGETING AND COVERAGE OF BENEFITSBenefits targeted towards the poor conserve limited resourcesfor those most in need. It would seem, therefore, thattargeting should improve programme participation among