Lok Sabha Question No. 1977 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2024-12-06
Subject: Mini Anganwadi Centres
Ministry: WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: Dr. Bachhav Shobha Dinesh

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF WOMEN & CHILD DEVELOPMENT

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1977

TO BE ANSWERED ON 06.12.2024

## MINI ANGANWADI CENTRES

## †1977.  DR. BACHHAV SHOBHA DINESH:

Will the Minister of Women and Child Development be pleased to state:

- (a) the guidelines for setting up of Mini Anganwadi Centres (MACs) indicating the number of MACs currently functioning in the State of Maharashtra alongwith the details of facilities being provided therein;
- (b) whether the proposals for setting up more MACs have been received from Maharashtra;
- (c) if so, the details thereof alongwith the action taken thereon;
- (d) whether the Government proposes to upgrade such centres and has allocated additional funds for construction of their permanent buildings, if so, the details thereof; and
- (e) whether the Government has noticed any irregularities in the functioning of these centres and conducted any inspection to check their functioning and utilization of funds, if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN & CHILD DEVELOPMENT (SHRIMATI SAVITRI THAKUR)

(a) to (e) Earlier, there was a provision of setting up Mini Anganwadi Centre for which population norms were as follows;

| Project                                                          | Population   |   No. of Mini-AWC |
|------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------|-------------------|
| Rural/Urban Projects                                             | 150-400      |                 1 |
| Tribal/Riverine/Desert, Hilly and other difficult areas/Projects | 150-300      |                 1 |

Government of India has taken a policy decision to upgrade all Mini AWCs to fullfledged Anganwadi Centres with one worker and one helper each to carry out various responsibilities more effectively under Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0, keeping in view the importance of nutrition and Early Childhood Care & Education.

Out of 1,16,852 Mini-AWCs in 23 States/UTs, approval for upgradation of 86,351 mini AWCs has been conveyed to 20 States/UTs including State of Maharashtra as per proposals submitted by them. The State of Maharashtra had 13011 mini Anganwadi Centres. It had sent a proposal for upgradation to regular AWCs. The same has been approved by this Ministry.

Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 is a Centrally Sponsored scheme. The Central Government is responsible for overall policy and broad planning and the State Governments are responsible for day-to-day program implementation.

Under  Mission  Saksham  Anganwadi  and  Poshan  2.0,  there  is  a  provision  of construction of 50000 AWCs buildings over a period of five years @10000 AWCs per year.  The  cost  norms  for  construction  of  Anganwadi  Centres  in  convergence  with Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) have been revised from Rs.7 Lakh per AWC to Rs.12 Lakh per AWC wherein Rs.8.00 Lakh would be provided under MGNREGS, Rs.2.00 Lakh under 15th Finance Commission (FC) (or any other untied funds) and Rs.2.00 Lakh by MWCD per AWC to be shared between the Centre and the States/UTs in the prescribed cost sharing ratio. Further, States/UTs have also been advised to continue to tap funds for construction of AWC buildings  from  various  schemes  such  as  Member  of  Parliament  Local  Area Development  Scheme  (MPLADS),  Rural  Infrastructure  Development  Fund  (RIDF), Finance Commission Grants to Panchayati Raj Institutions, National Rural Employment  Guarantee  Act  (NREGA),  Multi-  Sectoral  Development  Programme (MSDP) of Ministry of Minority Affairs, etc.

Under Mission Poshan 2.0, Anganwadi workers (AWWs) have been technologically empowered with the provision of smartphones for efficient monitoring of Anganwadi activities and better service delivery for beneficiaries. The mobile application, Poshan Tracker digitizes physical registers used by Anganwadi workers. This improves their quality of work while simultaneously allowing them more time for supervising all the activities going on simultaneously.

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