PEOPLE'S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES A v.

UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

DECEMBER 13, 2006

{DR. ARIJIT PASAYAT AND S.H. KAPADIA, JJ.] B

Public Interest Litigation-Integrated Child Development Scheme- Universalization of /CDS, Anganwadi centre to be made operational- Directions by Supreme Court to Central Government and State Government for implementation of the Scheme-Non-compliance-Thus, issuance of C directions to Central Government and State Government-States, Union Territories and Central Government to file report.

Integrating Child Development Scheme (ICDS) is meant for children of age group of 0-6 years, adolescent girl, pregnant woman and nursing mothers; and that every malnourished ch.ild must get enhanced ration and D that there must be ICDS disbursement centre in every settlement. Funds are released by Central Government to the State Government and the State is to implement the Scheme but they failed to match the grants given by the Central Government. This Court issued directions for universalization of ICDS regarding universalisation of coverage under ICDS, every habitation should E have a functional ICDS centre (Anganwadi), immediate operationalisation of all sanctioned projects/centres without delay, utilization of all funds allocated, and the implementatiori by the Central Government and State Government.

Commissioner was appointed to submit report regarding implementation.of the scheme. Report showed that the directions were not implemented.

Committee made certain recommendations with regard to establishment of F additional Anganwadi centres (14 lakhs A WCs) and formulation of improved norms for creation and placement of A WC's and that the State Government/ UT's be directed to submit affidavits giving plan of action for ensuring that all these habitations have functioning A WC's within two years. Hence the present matters.

Adjourning the matters and giving directions, the Court

HELD: 1. In view of the submissions made and considering the material!I placed on record it is directed that: [919-El

907 H

(1) Government of India shall sanction and operationalize a minimum of 14 lakh A WCs in a phased and even manner starting forthwith and ending December 2008. In doing so, the Central Government shall identify SC and ST hamlets/habitations for A WCs on a priority basis. (919-E-Fl

(2) Government of India shall ensure that population norms for opening, B of A WCs must not be revised upward under any circumstances. While maintaining the _upper limit of one AWC per 1000 population, the minimum limit for opening of a new A WC is a population of 300 may be kept in view.

Further, rural communities and slum dwellers should be entitled to an "Anganwadi on demand" (not later than three months) from the date of demand C in cases where a settlement has at least 40 children under six but no Anganwadi. (919-F-H]

(3) The universalisation of the ICDS involves extending all ICDS services (Supplementary nutrition, growth monitoring, nutrition and healtl! education, immunization, referral and pre-school education) to every child D under the age of 6, all pregnant women and lactating mothers and all adolescent girls. [920-A)

(4) All the State Governments and Union Territories shall fully implement the ICDS scheme by, interalia, (i) allocating and spending at least Rs. 2 per child per day for supplementary nutrition out of which the Central E Government shall contribute Rs. 1 per child per day. (ii) allocating and spending at least Rs. 2.70 for every severely malnourished child per day for supplementary nutrition out of which tlte Central Government shall contribute Rs. 1.35 per child per day. (iii) allocating and spending at least Rs. 2.30 for every pregnant women, nursing mother/adolescent girl per day for

F supplementary nutrition out of which the Central Government shall contribute Rs. 1.15. (920-B-E]

(5) The Chief Secretaries of the State of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Punjab, West Bengal, Assam, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh shall appear personally to explain why the orders of this Court requiring the G full implementation of the ICDS scheme were not obeyed. [920-D-E)

(6) Chief Secretaries of all State Governments/UTs are directed to submit affidavits with details of all habitations with a majority of SC/ST households, the availability of A WCs in these habitations, and the plan of action for ensuring that all these habitations have functioning A WCs within H two years. [920-E-G)

PEOPLE'S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES v. U.O .I. 909

(7) Chief Secretaries of all State Governments/UTs are directed to A submit affidavits giving details of the steps that have been taken with regard to the order of this Court of October 7th, 2004 directing that "contractors shall not be used for supply of nutrition in Anganwadis and preferably ICDS

funds shall be spent by making use ofvillage communities, self-help groups and Mahi la Manda ls for buying of grains and preparation of meals". Chief Secretaries of all State Governments/UTs must indicate a time-frame within B which the decentralization of the supply of SNP through local community shall be done. (920-F-H; 921-A)

ORIGINAL JURISDICTION : I.A. Nos. 34, 35, 40, 49, 58, 59, 60, 61 and 62.

Writ Petition No. 196 of2001.

(Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India.)

Colin Gonsalves, Puja Sharma, Jyoti Mendiratta and Praveen Jain for the Petitioner.

Manjit Singh, A.AG., T.S. Doabia, R.G. Pandia, M.F. Humayunisa, Hemant Sharma, Sunita Sharma, Sandhya Goswami, V.K. Verma, Sushma Suri, D.S. E Mahra, Anuvrat Sharma, Sanjay Kumar Singh, Ravindra K. Adsure, Harikesh

Singh, T.V. George, Anil Shrivastav, Ashok Bhan, S. Wasim A. Qadri, Anil Katiyar, Hemantika Wahi, Shrivangi, Pinky Behera, U. Hazarika, Satya Mitra, Pinky Anand, Gopal Prasad, Rajesh Pathak, Pradeep Misra, T. Mahipal, Sarup Singh, R.K. Pandey, Arun K. Sinha, Ms. A. Subhashini, Tara Chandra Sharma, Neelam Sharma, Gopal Singh, Ritu Raj Biwas, Anukul Raj, Riku Sharma, J.S. F Attri, Shivani Thakur, A. Mariarputham, Aruna Mathur, Mini N. Nair (for Ml s. Arputham, Aruna & Co.) Sumitra Hazarika, K.N. Madhusoodhanan, R.

Satish, Uday B. Dube, Kuldip Singh, Rachna Srivastava, Suparna Srivastava, Pooja Mattani, Rajesh Srivastava, Kamini Jaiswal, Shomila Bakshi, Rani Mishra, KH Nobin Singh, B.V. Niren, V.G. Pragasam, S. Vallinayagasm, Jana Kalyan Das, Aruneshwar Gupta, Naveen Kumar Singh, Mukul Sood, B.B. Singh, B.S. G Banthia, Amit Mishra, G. Prakash, Beena Prakash, Dileep Kumar K.D., Anuvrat Sharma, Sanjay Kumar Singh, Indra Sawhney, R.K. Maheshwari, S.V.

Deshpande, K.V. Mohan, Ranjan Mukherjee, D. Bharathi Reddy, Ramesh Babu M.R., Shrivastava, Prashant Kumar, Sanjay R. Hegde, Riku Sarma (for Mis.

Corporate Law Group), Vishwajit Singh, Gopal Singh, Nishakant Pandey, B.V. H

A Balaram Das, Jatinder Kr. Bhatia, Ravi Prakash Mehrotra, Anil Srivastava, Rajesh, Anis Suhrawardy, R.C. Kaushik and Pradeep Misra for the Respondents.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by

Dr. ARIJIT PASA Y AT. J. Grievance is made by he petitioner about the non-implementation of he directions given by this Court to the Central Government and the State Government relating to Integrating Child Development Scheme (in short the 'ICDS'). The scheme is meant for children of the age group of 0-6, Pregnant women, lacetating mothers and adolescent girls.

C Undisputedly, funds are released by the Central Government to the State

Governments who are required to implement the scheme. State Governments, it is alleged, have failed to match the grants given by the Central Government.

We shall deal with this aspect a little later in detail.

Dr. N.C. Saxena, Commissioner, and Sh. Harsh Mander, the Special D Commissioner were appointed pursuant to the orders passed by this Court for giving their reports on the question whether the Scheme has been implemented in the manner desired by this Court by various orders.

A bare reading of the reports shows the grim realities and apparent E lethargy of some of the States in implementing the Scheme.

By report dated 19th July 2006 following recommendations are made by the Committee.

(I} Reassert the figure of 14 lakhs AW Cs as a benchmark estimate of the minimum number of A WCs required for universalization ofICDS, based on existing nonns.

(2) Direct the Government of India to raise the number of A WCs to 14 lakhs within three years.

(3) Direct the government of India to fonnulate improved norms for the creation and placement of A WCs, in the light of this report, and in consultation with the Commissioners. The improved norms should be consistent with universalization in the sense that implementation of these norms would ensure convenient access to an Anganwadi (or mini-Anganwadi, as the case may be) to all children and eligible

PEOPLE'S UNIONFORCIVILLTBERTIESv. U.O.I. [PASAYAT, J.] 911

women.

(4) Clarify that universalizatiion ofICDS involves extending all lCDS, services (not just supplementary nutrition) to all children below the age of six, all pregnant or lacetating women and all adolescent girls.

(5) Direct chief secretaries of all State Govemment/UTs to submit B affidavits to the Honorable Supreme Court with details of all habitations with a majority of SC/ST households, the availability of A WCs in these habitations, and the plan of action fro ensuring that all these habitations have functioning A WCs within two years.

(6) Direct Chief Secretaries of all State Govemments/UTs to submit C affidavits to the Honorable Supreme Court on the steps that have been taken with regard to the interim order of this Court of October 7th, 2004 directing that "contractors shall not be used for supply of nutrition in Anganwadis and preferably ICDS funds shall be spent by making use of village communities, self-help groups and Mahila . Manda ls for buying of grains and preparation of meals". Chief D Secretaries of all State Govemments/UTs must also commit to a timeframe within which the decentralization of the supply ofSNP through local community efforts will be made . .

Under the Chapter 1.4 "Will India meet the Nutrition MDG?" The Report indicates as follows:

"The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of internationally agreed goals that countries and institutions have committed to reach by 2015. The second MDG target, which we refer to as the nutrition MDC, is to halve between 1990 and 2015:

(i) the prevalence of underweight children (under five years of age)

(ii) the proportion of population below a minimum level of dietary energy consumption.

A few studies, using different assumptions, have considered the G likelihood that India will attain the second nutrition MDG. Although their projections differ, in sum it seems unlikely that the prevalence of malnutrition in India will fall from its level of 54% in 1990 to 27W by 20 l 568, NFHS data shows that in 1998/99, even the wealthiest quintile had a prevalence of malnutrition (33%) that far exceeded the MDG H

goal. Our projections indicate that economic growth alone is unlikely to be sufficient to lower the prevalence of malnutrition. When combined with policy interventions, the projections are rosier, but a rapid scalingup of health, nutrition, education and infrastructure interventions is needed if the MDG is to be met".

In the earlier '"eport, i.e. 6th report, dated 2 lst November 2005 the following observations of the Commissioner are relevant:

"Compliance with the 28 November 2001 order and coverage of !CDS beneficiaries-significant orders of this court were passed regarding the implementation of the ICDS on 28.11.200 I stating that the services of the ICDS must be made available to every child up to 6 years of age, every adolescent girl, every pregnant woman and nursing mother, that every malnourished child must get an enhanced ration and that there must be an ICDS disbursement centre in every settlement. The order was the first amongst many regarding the implementation of the ICDS.

The State-wise coverage of beneficiaries under the ICDS as it currently stands as per the Department of Women and child Development, Go! 5 is given in Table 1..1 The number of children in the 0-6 year age group being provided supplementary nutrition services under the ICDS stands at 403 lakhs. In comparison, as per the 2001 Census of India the 0-6 year population in India stands at 1578 lakhs.

Thus, as many as 1201 lakhs or 74% of children entitled to the ICDS are currently left out of its net.

The coverage of adolescent girls in the .11-18 year age group is worse than that of children in the 0-6 year age group .The Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY), under which adolescent girls are covered remains limited to 2000 TCDS Projects. The total coverage of adolescent girls stands at a mere 2.4 lakhs. In comparison, as per the census of 2001, the total female population in the 11-18 years age group stands at approximately 844 lakhs. The coverage of adoles::ent girls has therefore virtually no taken off with a mere 0.3% of adolescent girls being covered under the scheme. It is important to note that of the 35 states and Uts only Chattisgarh, Gujrat, Haryana, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Andflman and Nicobar Islands have reported to the Commissioner that adolescent girls are being covered under the ICDS.

Other States such as Bihar, Goa,, Jharkand and Orissa have pointedly

PEOPLE'S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES v. U.O .I. [PASAYAT, J.] 913

stated that adolescent girls are not being covered under the A ICDS, although Blocks were identified for the implementation of the project as far back as 1991-92. Thus an entire section of beneficiaries. Remain completely ignored in the implementation of the scheme.

The number of pregnant women and nursing mothers is estimated B to be 4% of the total population at any point in time as per ICDS Scheme guidelines. The current coverage of 81.05 lakh beneficiaries in this category therefore, is less than 20% of the estimated number of persons who should be covered by the scheme."

The essence of the previous orders dated 28.11.2001, 29.4.2004 and C 7.10.2004 ofthis Court can be summed up as follows:

(I) Almost five years ago (on 28th November 2001), the Hon'ble

Supreme Court issued an interim order calling for the universalization of ICDS, in the sense that (I) every habitation should have a functional ICDS centre (Anganwadi), and (2) ICDS D services should be extended to all children upto the age of six years, all pregnant or nursing mothers and all adolescent girls.

This order was reiterated and extended on 29th April, 2004 and 7the October, 2004, along with further directions on ICDS.

(2) We are concerned that very little progress has been made towards E the implementation of these orders. In the 2004-05 financial year, the Government of India sanctioned the opening of 1.88 lakh new Anganwadi Centres towards implementation of the above quoted orders. It is a matter of concern that these Anganwadi Centers have not so far been operationalised. The Hon 'hie Court may F seek an explanation from the Ministry of women and Child Development, government of India, in this regard.

(3) In fact, the Government of India has not only failed to implement aforementioned orders of the Hon'ble Court, but challenged the basic principle of universalization outlined in these orders. The G aim of this note is to clarify some key issues and present recommendations for further orders.

Anganwadi Centers are hereinafter referred to as A WCs.

As noted above, the reports of the Commissioner present a grim picture. H

A Though directions were given by this Court in relation to universalisation of coverage under ICDS, immediate operationalisation of all sanctioned projects/ centers without delay, utilization of all funds allocated, the implementation by the Central Government and the State Governments is more in breach than observance. In the earlier orders dated 29.4.2004, 7.10.2004 the submissions B made by the petitioner regarding universalisation was accepted to the effect that about 14 lakhs A WCs should be made functional. As the data available indicates till now only :>,52,764 centers have been sanctioned (including 1.8 lakhs new A WCs )under the first phase of expansion that was sanctioned in

2005. It appears that the Central Government has announced sanction of 1.07 lakhs in the last week of August, 2006, which means the total number of C sanctioned centers would be around 10.5 lakhs leaving a deficit of 3.5 lakhs centers. It appears that event the earlier expansion of 1.88 lakhs centers, which were sanctioned have not yet become operational.

In its letter dated 23.1.2006, the Central Government in its letter addressed to the Commissioners rejected the figure of 14 lakhs suggested by the D petitioner on the ground that it was based on a survey of drink.ing water facilities whereby any population cluster of at least 250 persons counts as a separate "habitation". According to norms suggested by the petitioner, one A WC was intended "for every 1,000 population". This was suggestd on a practical basis because one A wc cannot serve more than 1000 persons i.e.

E about 200 households. Since many of the A WCs have a single worker even

1000 persons appear to be a high cut off.

The suggestions presently given are that a full-fledged AWC should be made operational for a population of 300 persons or above. This is stated to be on the basis of 7th All Indian Educational Survey (in short "AIES").

F Though the .Central Government has accepted the need foe revision of the norms for creation or placement for A WCs , very little appears to have been done. An Inter-Ministerial Task Force (in short "IMTF") was constituted for this purpose. It has submitted its report some times earlier his year.

Whatever be the norms suggested, immediate steps should be taken to G make all the sanctioned centers functional and operational without further delay. Petitioner has placed on record various materials to contend that the benchmark needs to be substantially reduced to provide a rational base. As the data available goes to show about 79% of the sanctioned centers have been made operational. As the data placed by the petitioner goes to show only about 69.4% of the sanctioned centers are providing supplementary H

PEOPLE'S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES v. U.O .I. [PASA Y AT, J.] 915

nutrition.

According to the data provided regarding the furic!'~· llocation and utilization, following is the position:

"Till the 2004-05 financial year, nonns for per beneficiary per day' allocation of funds to be made by State/UT government were those set in B

1991. In the last financial year (in December 2004 ), the Do WCD took the long overdue step of revising the financial norms for money to be spent per beneficiary per day for the provision of supplementary nutrition. The cost norms have been changed to the following:

Table l.3:Nonns for per beneficiary per day allocation of funds under State/ c UT plans

Beneficiary Old Rates* New Rates**

ChiJdren (6-72 months) Re. 0.95 per child Rs 2/- per child per day per day

Severely malnourished Rs.1.35 per child Rs 270 per child per day children (6-72 months) per day

Pregnant women and nursing Rs.l.15 per Rs2.30 per beneficiary mothers/adolescent beneficiary per day per day girls(KSY) E

*Rates set by the DoWCE, GOI in 1991

**Rates set by the DoWCD, GOI in December 2004"

This is based on DoWCD letter No. F.No.19r5/2003-CD-I (pt) dated 19th F October 2004.

As lllentioned in the Sixth Report of the Commissioners to this Court, over the years the funds allocated by the State Governments for Supplementary Nutrition Programme (in short 'SNP') has been low and the utilisation of allocated funds has also been poor. According to Jata from the DoWCD, the G following is the position of allocation and expenditure by States and GOI for SNP In 2005-06:

...

Statement indicating Budget allocation by States, Releases made by GOI and Expenditure reported during 2005-06 for Supplementary Nutrition Programmee (SNP) under Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS ) Scheme.

Rs. In Lakh

Budget Releases Total Expenditure % allocation for made by Allocation including Utilisation SNP by the

GOI State share States in the year 2005-06

Plan Non During Reported Plan 2005-06 by the States during 2005-06 I 2 3 4 5 6

197512.08 84351.13 97458.55 379321.76 218801.73 57.7

*expenditure upto 15/2/06

This is based in DoWCED, GOI's letter to Commissioners (letter no. 19- 5/2003-CD-I (Vol.l l l) dated 28.08.06)

E It is thus seen that the extent of utilization of funds allocated for SNP is on an average only 57.7% for the country as a whole. Despite allocations made by the States and a corresponding grant given by the Centre, huge amounts of money is being left unspent and rightful beneficiaries are being denied critically needed supplementary nutrition.

F Further, shortfall in allocation required to cover all the children under 6 in the country under the SNP programme is about 60%.

Total Total no. of Required Shortfall % Allocation Chidren under- Allocation* Shortfall 6 (according to G Census 200 I) 379321.76 1578.6 947178.87 567857.l l 59.95%

The figures are in Iakhs.

The calculation is at the rate of Rs. 2 per child per day for 300 days.

H The calculations above have been made only taking into account children

- PEOPLE'S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES v. U.O .I. [PASA YAT. J.] 917

under 6 years of age in the country. However, the allocations are for the entire A SNP programme of the !CDS which is to also cover pregnant women, lactating mothers and adolescent girls taking this into account the shortfall in allocation would be even larger.

Certain States have been performing particularly badly in respect to most of the indicators seen above. The following is the data in relation to B these states.

State No. of AWCs No. of AWCs % providing sanctioned providing SNP service

Punjab 17421 14730 84.6

Haryana .16359 13546 82.8

Uttar Pradesh 137557 102881 74.8

Jharkand 30854 19571 63.4

Bihar 80415 50503 62.8

West Bengal 74640 45285 60.7

Madhya Pradesh 59324 35549 59.9

Assam 32.75 4330 13.5

Manipur 4501 0 0.0

Further even though the other States have a higher number of centers that are providing SNP, in terms of the utilization and allocation of funds they are performing badly.

State Total Expenditure % Utilisation Allocation (11pto to (Center+ 15/0206) State)

Manipur 133424 1329.16 99.6

Jharkhand 16473.84 12711.01 772

Uttar Pradesh 67569.73 45916.19 68.0

Assam 9666.67 5337.64 552

Madhya Pradesh 20877.53 9457.82 453 ,

Bihar 43040.62 18989.12 44.l

Haryana 13628.80 4046.03 29.7

West Bengal 45345.67 11845.38 26.1

Punjab 14814.55 3599.65 24.3

The basis for working out the above details is DoWCD, GOl's letter to Commissioners (letter no. NO. 19-5/2003-CD-l (Vol. III), 28.08.2006).

E While none of the States are utilizing the funds allocated to them for

the purpose of SNP, percent of utilization isles than even 30% in the States of Haryana, West Bengal and Punjab. In the case of Manipur it is suspicious as to where the funds have been spent as according to the data given by the Department of Women and Child Development, number of beneficiaries under SNP in Manipur is nil.

In the following table the funds required for SNP to cover all the children under the age of six (based on the norm of Rs. 2 per child per day for 300 days) has been calculatd. As can be seen in the table below, in states like Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal and Haryana there is a shortfall of more than 60% of funds that are actually required to G cover all children under -6. This combined with the fact that these states to not fully utilize even what is currently being allocated to theni shows that many deserving beneficiaries are being left out of the supplementary nutrition programme of the ICDS.

.....

PEOPLE'S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIESv. U.O .I. [PASAYAT, J.] 919

State Total 0-6 Amount % Allocation population required to Shortfall (Centre+ as per be allocated States) 2001 for the 0-6 Census population (in Rs.

Corores)#

Manipur 133424 3.1 1876.146 28.88

Jharkhand 16473.84 48.0 28777.128 42.75

Bihar 43040.62 162.3 97407234 55.81

Assam 9666.67 43.5 26101.488 62.97

Uttar Pradesh 67569.73 304.7 182832.252 63.04

Madhya Pradesh 20877.53 106.2 63709.938 68.23

Punjab 14814.55 30.6 18332.952 67.53

West Bengal 45345.67 111.3 66796.944 70.69 Haryana 13628.80 32.6 19554.48 75.11

The above details ar culled out from DoWCD, GOI's Letter to Commissioners, letter no. No. 19-5/2003-CD-l(Vol. III) 28.08.06 which has been referred to in detail above.

Keeping in view the submissions made and considering the materials placed on record we direct as follows: E

(1) Government of India shall sanction and operationalize minimum of 14 lakh A WCs in a phased and even manner starting forthwith and ending December 2008. In doing so, the Central Gov_emment shall identify SC and ST hamlets/habitations for A WCs on a priority basis.

(2) Government of India shall ensure that population norms for opening of A WCs must not be revised upward under any circumstances. While maintaining the upper limit of one A WC per

1000 population, the minimum limit for opening of a new A WC is a population of 300 may be kept in view. Further, rural G communities and slum dwellers should be entitled to an "Anganwadi on demand" (not later than three months) form he date of demand in cases where a settlement has at least 40 children under six but no anganwadi.

A (3) The universalisation of the ICDS involves extending all ICDS services (Supplementary nutrition, growth monitoring, nutrition and health education, immunization, referral an pre-school education) to every child under the age of 6, all pregnant women an lactating mothers and all adolescent girls.

B (4) All the State Governments and union Territories shall fully implement the ICD scheme by, inter alia,

(i) allocating and spending at least Rs. 2 per child per day for supplementary nutrition out of which the Central Government shall contribute Rs. I per child per day. c

(ii) allocating and spending at least Rs. 2. 70 for every severely malnourished child per day for supplementary nutrition out of which the Central Government shall contribute Rs. 1.35 per child per day.

(iii) allocating and spending at least Rs. 2.30 for every pregnant D women, nursing mother/adolescent girl per day for supplementary nutrition out of which the Central Government shall contribute Rs. 1.15.

(5) The Chief Secretaries of the State of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya

Pradesh, Manipur, Punjab, West Bengal, Assam, Haryana and E Uttar Pradesh shall appear personally to explain why the orders of this Court requiring the full implementation of the ICDS scheme were not obeyed.

(6) Chief Secretaries of all State Governments/UT are directed to submit affidavits giving details of all habitations with a majority F of SC/ST households, the availability of A WCs in these habitations, and the plan of action for ensuring that all these habitations have functioning A WCs within two years.

(7) Chief Secretaries of all State Govemments/UTs are directed to submit affidavits giving details of the steps that have been taken G with regards to the order of this Court of October 7th, 2004 directing that "contractors shall not be used for supply of nutrition in Anganwadis and preferably ICDS funds shall be spent by making use of village communities, self-help groups and Mahi!~ Mandals for buying of grains and preparation of meals". Chief Secretaries of all State Governments/UTs. must indicate a time- H

PEOPLE'S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES v. U.O .L [PASAYAT. J.] 921

frame within which the decentralisation of the supply of SNP A through local community shall be done.

(8) It is matter of concern that 15 States and Union Terrioties have not submitted any affidavit in compliance with the order dated 7.10.2004. They are the State of Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Goa, Punjab Manipur, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Mizoram, Haryana, Bihar and the National Capital of Delhi and the Union Terrioty of Lakshadweep. Within four weeks reply shall be filed through the concerned Chief Secretary as to why action for contempt shall not be initaited for the lapse.

The matters shall be listed after three months. Upto date statistic report shall be filed by the different States, Union Territories and the Central Government.

N.J.

Matters Adjourned.