BHUBANESWAR : The rising food prices, eggs in particular, have become a roadblock in implementation of the supplementary nutrition programme (SNP) for children, expectant and nursing mothers besides, adolescent girls at anganwadi centres.
Under the Integrated Child Development Services, the anganwadis are implementing SNP wherein children, pregnant and nursing mothers, and adolescent girls are provided nutritional support for 300 days in a year. While children (3 to 6 years old) are provided morning snacks and cooked meals, pregnant and nursing mothers, adolescent girls and severely underweight children (3 months to 6 years) are provided take home ration (THR).
Both THR and hot cooked meals include eggs which cost Rs 8 to Rs 9 per piece in retail markets. While a child is entitled to get five eggs in a week, a mother should be provided a dozen eggs per month and it is 16 eggs per month for an adolescent girl. However, for procuring eggs, the state government is providing Rs 5 per student under the total SNP cost, which the anganwadi workers said is grossly inadequate.
While the THR includes eggs, chhatua and nutritionally-rich chikkis or ladoos, the cooked food for children has rice, dalma and lemon on Monday and Thursday besides rice, boiled egg, vegetable curry and lemon on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, the menu is rice, egg curry and lemon. In 2018, the SNP cost per head was increased to Rs 8, Rs 9.50, Rs 12 and Rs 9.50 for children in the age group of 6 months to 6 years, pregnant and nursing mothers, severely underweight children and adolescent girls respectively.
“There has been no revision since then despite a three-time hike in prices of grains, eggs and every other raw material. We are forced to compromise on some or the other ground to meet the egg requirement. The government fails to realise that egg cost has risen to Rs 8 to Rs 9 a piece while SNP cost continues to remain unchanged for the last seven years,” said Sabitri Behera, one of the anganwadi workers who had gathered in large numbers at the PMG road here on Monday to protest the government’s negligence towards SNP.
While demanding a revision of the SNP cost, the anganwadi workers also alleged that the government keeps a track of cooked food and THR provided every day through the POSHAN Tracker mobile application but the mobile phones provided to them for the job fail to function. Their 12-point charter of demands also included a hike in their monthly honorarium in wake of an increasing workload including ground work for Subhadra Yojana.
Earlier this year, the BJD government had increased the monthly honorarium of anganwadi workers from `7,500 to `10,000 and that of mini anganwadi workers from `5,375 to `7,250.
