Integrated Child Development Services (Hindi: समन्वित बाल विकास योजना), Government of India (GOI) sponsored programme, is India's primary social welfare scheme to tackle malnutrition and health problems in children below 6 years of age and their mothers. The main beneficiaries of the programme were aimed to be the girl child up to her adolescence, all children below 6 years of age, pregnant and lactating mothers. The gender promotion of the girl child by trying to bring her at par with the male child is a key component of the scheme.
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Majority of children in India have underprivileged childhoods starting from birth. The infant mortality rate of Indian children is 50[1] and the under-five mortality rate is 93 and 25% of newborn children are underweight among other nutritional, immunization and educational deficiencies of children in India. Figures for India are substantially worse than the developing country average.[1]
Given such a daunting challenge, ICDS was first launched in 1975[2] in accordance to the National Policy for Children in India.[3] Over the years it has grown into one of the largest integrated family and community welfare schemes in the world.[4] Given its effectiveness over the last few decades, Government of India has committed towards ensuring universal availability of the programme.[1]
The predefined objectives of ICDS are:[2]
The following services are sponsored under ICDS to help achieve its objectives:[5]
For nutritional purposes ICDS is provides 300 calories (with 8-10 grams of protein) every day to every child below 6 years of age.[6] For adolescent girls it is up to 500 calories with up to 25 grams of protein everyday.
Delivery of services under ICDS scheme is managed in an integrated manner through Anganwadi centres,[Note 1] its workers and helpers. The services of Immunisation, Health Check-up and Referral Services delivered through Public Health Infrastructure under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.[2] UNICEF has provided essential supplies for the ICDS scheme since 1975.[5] World Bank has also assisted with the financial and technical support for the programme.[1] The cost of ICDS programme averages $10–$22 per child a year.[1] The scheme is Centrally sponsored with the state governments contributing up to 1.00 (US$0.02) per day per child.[6]
Furthermore, in 2008, the GOI adopted the World Health Organization (WHO) standards for measuring and monitoring the child growth and development, both for the ICDS and the National Rural Health Mission (NHRM).[2] These standards were developed by WHO through an intensive study of six developing countries since 1997.[2] They are known as New WHO Child Growth Standard and measure of physical growth, nutritional status and motor development of children from birth to 5 years age.[7]
By end of 2010, the programme is claiming to reach 8.06 million expectant, pregnant and lactating mothers along with 39.35 million children (under 6 years of age).[5] There are 6,719 operational projects with 1,241,749 operational Aanganwadi centres.[2] Several positive benefits of the programme have been documented and reported
However, World Bank has also highlighted certain key shortcomings of the programme including inability to target the girl child improvements, participation of wealthier children more than the poorer children and lowest level of funding for the poorest and the most undernourished states of India.[8]