Lok Sabha Question No. 3279 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2025-08-08
Subject: Take‑Home Ration through Anganwadi Centres
Ministry: WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: Shri Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3279

TO BE ANSWERED ON 08.08.2025

## TAKE-HOME RATION THROUGH ANGANWADI CENTRES

## 3279.  SHRI SAPTAGIRI SANKAR ULAKA:

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

- (a) the  number  of  pregnant/  lactating  women  receiving  Take-Home  Ration  (THR) through Anganwadi centres during the last five years, State/UT wise;
- (b) the  number  and  percentage  of  beneficiaries  subjected  to  Aadhaar-based  facial authentication  via  the  Poshan  App  along  with  present  cumulative  total,  State/UT wise;
- (c) whether  facial  authentication  is  mandated  (orders/circulars  with  dates)  or  in  pilot stage along with criteria for selection of districts;
- (d) whether  any  specific  network/device/application  issues  have  been  reported  by Anganwadi Workers affecting Poshan App uploads, if so, the details thereof along with the steps taken to ensure no beneficiary is denied THR for technical failure; and
- (e) the details of the measures being taken for data security, consent, purpose, limitation, retention, access control and privacy audit of collected biometric data?

## ANSWER

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

(a)    Under the 15th Finance Commission, various components like Anganwadi services, Poshan Abhiyaan and Scheme for Adolescent girls (of 14-18 years in Aspirational Districts and  North-Eastern  region)  have  been  subsumed  under  the  umbrella  Mission  Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 (Mission Poshan 2.0) to address the challenge of malnutrition. It is a Centrally Sponsored mission, where the responsibility for implementation of various activities lies with the States and UTs. This mission is a universal self-selecting umbrella scheme  where  there  are  no  entry  barriers  for  any  beneficiary  to  register  and  receive services.

Supplementary  Nutrition  is  provided  to  pregnant  women  and  lactating  mothers  in accordance with the nutrition norms contained in Schedule-II of the National Food Security Act. These norms have been revised in January 2023. The old norms were largely caloriespecific; however, the revised norms are more comprehensive and balanced in terms of both quantity and quality of supplementary nutrition based on the principles of diet diversity that provides for quality protein, healthy fats and micronutrients. The details of the number of  pregnant  women  and  lactating  mothers,  for  whom  Supplementary  nutrition  is  being provided for first quarter of FY 25-26 to the States and UTs are placed at Annexure-I . The number of beneficiaries is based on the number of Aadhaar-verified beneficiaries minus opted out beneficiaries as reported on the Poshan Tracker on the last day of the first month of the preceding quarter.

(b) to (e)   Face Recognition System (FRS) Module was initially implemented as a pilot in the month of August 2024. It was implemented on an optional basis pan India in the month of December 2024. Since then, dutyholders in the States and UTs have been trained to perform facial recognition and verify beneficiaries with Aadhaar database. It is implemented since  July  1,  2025  for  ensuring  last  mile  delivery  of  take-home  ration  to  the  rightful beneficiary.  The FRS module has been developed as part of Poshan Tracker application. To  verify  a  beneficiary  through  Aadhar  identification,  eKYC  is  performed  along  with capturing of liveness image of the beneficiary. This onboarding process is performed once in the lifetime of the beneficiary on Poshan Tracker. For availing benefits of take-home ration on monthly basis, face matching can be performed both in online and offline mode and no repeated  eKYC  is  required.  The  offline  mode  feature  has  been  developed  keeping  in consideration the areas with low digital connectivity. The Facial Recognition feature has been made compatible for low end version phones as well.  Bal Aadhar for children under 5 years of age doesn't contain any biometric data; therefore, for children aged upto 6 years, the FRS of the mother/father/guardian is being done and not that of the child.

As on 5th August 2025, face capturing and e-KYC of 3.69 crore THR beneficiaries out of the 4.91 crore eligible beneficiaries registered for Take Home Ration(THR), which is almost 75.12%, have already been completed. State/UT wise details of beneficiaries eligible for THR and who have completed their face capturing and e-KYC as on 5 th  August 2025 are placed at Annexure-II.

Regular  training  and  handholding  sessions  have  been  conducted  by  NeGD  State Coordinators.  Further,  field  visits  by  officials  of  the  Ministry  of  Women  and  Child Development, GoI. and regular meetings with State officials have also been conducted to understand and redress technical difficulties.

Various  Data  Protection  Safeguards  exist  in  the  system.  Some  of  them  are  mentioned below:

-  The data of the beneficiary, which is collected, is subject to all existing data protection protocols,  which  mandates  purpose  limitation,  informed  consent,  and  access restrictions.

⁠

-  All requests and responses related to Face Verification are encrypted during transit, ensuring data is protected from interception or tampering.

⁠

-  and transmission.
-  No  images  or  data  are  stored  permanently  on  the  device.  As  a  precautionary measure, all cached or temporary data is wiped automatically when the Anganwadi worker logs out of the application.  The private data is not publicly accessible; it is only available to authorized personnel solely for verification purposes.  The Poshan Tracker application is typically used by Anganwadi Workers and it is not open  to  the  public  or  any  unauthorized  party.  Access  is  role-based,  logged  and monitored to prevent misuse.  Further,  the  application's  internal  database  is  encrypted,  preventing  access  to sensitive information outside the app environment Face images are handled in encoded format within the app to ensure safe processing

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Annexure-I

## ANNEXURE REFERRED IN REPLY TO PART (a) OF LOK SABHA QUESTION NO. 3279 FOR  08.08.2025  REGARDING  'TAKE-HOME  RATION  THROUGH  ANGANWADI CENTRES' ASKED BY SHRI SAPTAGIRI SANKAR ULAKA

The  details  of  the  number  of  pregnant  women  and  lactating  mothers,  for  whom Supplementary nutrition is being provided for first quarter of FY 25-26 to the States and UTs are as below:

|   S.No | State/UT                           |   Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers |
|--------|------------------------------------|----------------------------------------|
|      1 | Andhra Pradesh                     |                                 457921 |
|      2 | Bihar                              |                                1303166 |
|      3 | Chhattisgarh                       |                                 340451 |
|      4 | Goa                                |                                   8685 |
|      5 | Gujarat                            |                                 457810 |
|      6 | Haryana                            |                                 256160 |
|      7 | Jharkhand                          |                                 352302 |
|      8 | Karnataka                          |                                 669253 |
|      9 | Kerala                             |                                 226788 |
|     10 | Madhya Pradesh                     |                                 954001 |
|     11 | Maharashtra                        |                                 754318 |
|     12 | Odisha                             |                                 554701 |
|     13 | Punjab                             |                                 204284 |
|     14 | Rajasthan                          |                                 673563 |
|     15 | Tamil Nadu                         |                                 610932 |
|     16 | Telangana                          |                                 293402 |
|     17 | Uttar Pradesh                      |                                2850060 |
|     18 | West Bengal                        |                                1138312 |
|     19 | Delhi                              |                                 141263 |
|     20 | Puducherry                         |                                   7691 |
|     21 | Himachal Pradesh                   |                                  75635 |
|     22 | J&K                                |                                 112432 |
|     23 | Uttarakhand                        |                                 131129 |
|     24 | Andaman & Nicobar Islands          |                                   1783 |
|     25 | UT-Chandigarh                      |                                   7311 |
|     26 | Dadra & Nagar Haveli - Daman & Diu |                                   5959 |
|     27 | Ladakh                             |                                   2422 |
|     28 | Lakshadweep                        |                                    795 |
|     29 | Arunachal Pradesh                  |                                   4818 |
|     30 | Assam                              |                                 309595 |

|   31 | Manipur   |   20767 |
|------|-----------|---------|
|   32 | Meghalaya |   39865 |
|   33 | Mizoram   |   12192 |
|   34 | Nagaland  |    3591 |
|   35 | Sikkim    |    3489 |
|   36 | Tripura   |   33620 |

Annexure-II

ANNEXURE REFERRED IN REPLY TO PART (b) OF LOK SABHA QUESTION NO. 3279 FOR  08.08.2025  REGARDING  'TAKE-HOME  RATION  THROUGH  ANGANWADI CENTRES' ASKED BY SHRI SAPTAGIRI SANKAR ULAKA

State/UT wise details of beneficiaries eligible for THR and who have completed their face capturing and e-KYC are as follows:

|   SN | State/UTs                          |   Total Eligible Beneficiaries |   Total Face Captured + eKYC (n) |   Total Face Captured + eKYC (%) |
|------|------------------------------------|--------------------------------|----------------------------------|----------------------------------|
|    1 | Andaman & Nicobar Islands          |                           8233 |                             6848 |                            83.18 |
|    2 | Andhra Pradesh                     |                        1541251 |                          1459328 |                            94.68 |
|    3 | Arunachal Pradesh                  |                          47927 |                            14132 |                            29.49 |
|    4 | Assam                              |                        1581495 |                          1242723 |                            78.58 |
|    5 | Bihar                              |                        5383275 |                          3851780 |                            71.55 |
|    6 | Chhattisgarh                       |                        1287755 |                          1150313 |                            89.33 |
|    7 | Dadra & Nagar Haveli - Daman & Diu |                          20651 |                            17730 |                            85.86 |
|    8 | Delhi                              |                         457226 |                           429438 |                            93.92 |
|    9 | Goa                                |                          35341 |                            30443 |                            86.14 |
|   10 | Gujarat                            |                        1773624 |                          1262970 |                            71.21 |
|   11 | Haryana                            |                         832270 |                           653613 |                            78.53 |
|   12 | Himachal Pradesh                   |                         278721 |                           262848 |                            94.31 |
|   13 | J&K                                |                         453832 |                           321578 |                            70.86 |
|   14 | Jharkhand                          |                        1613004 |                           943551 |                            58.5  |
|   15 | Karnataka                          |                        2284001 |                          2158911 |                            94.52 |
|   16 | Kerala                             |                         856882 |                           558215 |                            65.14 |
|   17 | Ladakh                             |                           9549 |                             7284 |                            76.28 |
|   18 | Lakshadweep                        |                           3325 |                             2972 |                            89.38 |
|   19 | Madhya Pradesh                     |                        3369660 |                          2828899 |                            83.95 |
|   20 | Maharashtra                        |                        2943966 |                          2705717 |                            91.91 |
|   21 | Manipur                            |                         149839 |                           105604 |                            70.48 |
|   22 | Meghalaya                          |                         227423 |                            97721 |                            42.97 |
|   23 | Mizoram                            |                          61606 |                            53366 |                            86.62 |
|   24 | Nagaland                           |                          58240 |                            16364 |                            28.1  |
|   25 | Odisha                             |                        2042986 |                          1783135 |                            87.28 |
|   26 | Puducherry                         |                          30201 |                            24182 |                            80.07 |
|   27 | Punjab                             |                         820270 |                           525942 |                            64.12 |
|   28 | Rajasthan                          |                        2177151 |                          1910690 |                            87.76 |
|   29 | Sikkim                             |                          14993 |                             7092 |                            47.3  |
|   30 | Tamil Nadu                         |                        2052158 |                          1415731 |                            68.99 |
|   31 | Telangana                          |                        1116108 |                           779654 |                            69.85 |

| 32   | Tripura       |   164009 |   124973 |   76.20 |
|------|---------------|----------|----------|---------|
| 33   | UT-Chandigarh |    22419 |    21687 |   96.73 |
| 34   | Uttar Pradesh | 10771468 |  8902968 |   82.65 |
| 35   | Uttarakhand   |   472776 |   405620 |   85.8  |
| 36   | West Bengal   |  4184540 |   839279 |   20.06 |
|      | Total         | 49148175 | 36923301 |   75.12 |

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