Anganwadi centres run sans power, toilets

Anganwadi centres run sans power, toilets
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Highlights

No power supply, leaking roofs, lack of other basic facilities are the condition of the buildings in which anganwadi centres are housed. The rents of these buildings are in lakhs of rupees but sans facilities. 

Housed in rented apartments that charge thousands of rupees, the Anganwadi centres cry for basic facilities

Luxettipet: No power supply, leaking roofs, lack of other basic facilities are the condition of the buildings in which anganwadi centres are housed. The rents of these buildings are in lakhs of rupees but sans facilities.

The district administration is also negligent in paying attention to look into the plight of anganwadi children, who suffer extreme heat without air and light due to no power supply in summer and leakage from roof during rains.

The locals felt that it is the high time for the officials to provide the facilities since the State government has decided to convert anganwadi centres into pre-primary schools from the next academic year. The officials are already getting into the act to usher the change.

To make the switchover really effective, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao recently ordered a steep hike in the salaries of anganwadi workers and announced the government’s resolve to hold classes in English medium for the children.

But there are doubts over the implementation of this transformation. A look into the conditions prevailing in the anganwadi centres by The Hans India shows that of the 969 such establishments (with 48,950 children, 5,185 pregnant women and 5,622 lactating mothers) in Luxettipet, Mancherial, Bellampalli and Chennur ITDA projects, only 354 have pucca buildings.

As many as 474 centres were being run in rented premises while 100 centres are located in schools and gram panchayat offices. More than 50 per cent of the centres do not have power supply, causing severe problems to children. Many are without latrines and bathrooms causing severe hardship to pregnant women and lactating mothers.

On top of these problems, another major problem these anganwadi centres face is non-payment of rental amount every month. This forces the anganwadi workers to face the harassment of the owners of these rented premises.

There were allegations that the department officials take small premises on rent and claim higher rent. With small places, children are denied of playing and sport activities, in the absence of playgrounds. The kits supplied by the government, other play things like placards, wooden toys, story books, cardboard pieces to enable children to identify things/colours are remaining useless.

Mancherial District Welfare Officer Rauf Khan told THI that the administration would take steps to avoid inconvenience during summer to the children staying in anganwadi centres. Construction of own buildings for 50 centres in the district were already sanctioned, he added. Reports would be sent to the department on provision of power and other facilities in both old and new centres.

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