More than 57,000 migrant workers have registered for the special one nation one Anganwadi programme under which even if people relocate to another State, they can avail of the benefits given to children under six years and pregnant women and lactating mothers by the government.
Sources in the Ministry of Women and Child Development said that this is possible through coordination between the Centre and the State governments by using the Poshan Tracker App on mobile phones.
The Poshan Tracker management application provides a 360-degree view of the activities of the Anganwadi Centre (child care centres), service deliveries of Anganwadi Workers and complete beneficiary management for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under six. It also digitizes and automates physical registers used by workers that helps improve the quality of their work.
The Anganwadi workers are being provided smartphones procured through Government e-Market (GeM) for efficient service delivery. A total of 8.66 lakh such phones have been procured by all states and UTs. More than 6.5 lakh Anganwadi Workers have been trained till date for their use.
A nodal person has also been appointed for providing technical support and resolving any issue about downloading the new Poshan Tracker application and its functioning in each state.
The sources that each migrant worker who had registered in their original state could go to the nearest Anganwadi in their current place of residence and avail of the schemes and services offered.
Since the launch of the Poshan Abhiyan in 2018, a total of 10 crore 6 lakh beneficiaries have been registered out of which 47.6 lakh were lactating mothers, 7.48 crore were pregnant women and rest children. Of these 9 crore 38 lakh have been Aadhar verified.
An age-appropriate take home ration is also being designed for children up to six years of age and a proposal has been sent for the same to the finance ministry.
The sources said that there has also been a significant decline over the years in the numbers of girls dropping-out in the age group of 11-14 years.
In 2013-14, states and Union territories put the figure at 1.14 crore. It came down to five lakh in 2020-21, to 3.8 lakh in 2021-22 and finally to about one lakh in July last year. This indicates that many fake beneficiaries and wrong entries have been removed, the sources said.
The one lakh girls in the age group of 11-14 years, who dropped out of schools, have been brought back to mainstream education and then the scheme (for adolescent girls) was revised, the sources said.
In the North East and in aspirational districts, as many as 22.40 lakh adolescent girls have been identified, who will be covered under this new scheme which now falls under the ambit of the Poshan 2.0.
