...Aanganwadi...

 This is Ranjan, a cheerful endurable little kid. I met him in an aanganwadi school I happened to visit last month.This wide sparkling eyed kid seemed to be the brightest in the class and soon got friendly with me. I taught them for a week. This class had in all 20 students n of varied ages. One day I asked Ranjan about the reason , for y he was absent the last day. He said his mother slapped him n he started crying n so he didnt came. On asking further why was he was slapped, he said-"I was asking for rice.. "which probably she didnt had.
They just come there for the mid day meal...  I have digressed a little to explain the off screen picture so far, so let me now come to the topic.

India , today is a home of lakhs of malnutritioned hungry poor people who cant even arrange for food , keep aside this education, health and hygiene... And so to combat this situation , an initiative to spread education by The Government of India began this Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS). Under this scheme, one person is alloted to a population of 1000, to bridge the gap between the person and organised health care, and to focus on health n educational needs of these deprived kids. This person is known as the aaganwadi worker.

The Aanganwadi workers have to arrange a room where they can teach the kids for which they are assigned 500 bucks as room-rent n out of this only a sum of 200 bucks reaches in their hands.Now who can find a place in this amt!! They get a fixed amount for purchasing articles they need for midday meal for 60 students, healthcare products to expecting n feeding mothers. Aanganwadi is such an efficient concept ... but how far are these deprived kids n moms earing out if it..?? the officials who come to inspect these centers are fed a fix amout for signing the vouchers [the wrkers have to submit a voucher where they mention the no. of students whom they are providing meal]. Now if the no. is just 10, they write it 40, n get an equal amt frm the govt.

The officials , inter alia are aware of all this going under the aeiges of govt.The ppl wrk en masse, u cant detect the weak link...A shop keeper there told I can give 1 lakh for this job of aanganwadi worker. n I knw ppl who are into this after they stuffed thousands to the recruiters.
The innocent summisive kids just need the meal but how far this aftertaste long??
I must admit it irked me in the begining seeing this quasi-education system and all this just looked like a miasma of despair with the response evertym being a usual bromide.

Far away , all these successfully going with the responsibilites seems decernible.
but then this is all the what govt can possibly do...