Bhubaneswar: If a testing report is any indication, food adulteration seems to have crept even into the children’s welfare schemes under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).
As per the norms of ICDS in the state, children are given Take Home Ration (THR) ‘chattua’ as health supplement to ensure their adequate nutritional requirements. However, the monthly report of testing of THR (chattua) in Khurda district reveals a case of adulteration in the sample.
According to the report prepared by the District Social Welfare Officer and sent to the ICDS supervisor in Bhubaneswar, it has come to the fore that out of the 25 Self Help Groups (SHGs) operational in the district, one of them was found to be guilty of distributing adulterated and unsafe ‘chattua’ to the beneficiaries of the ICDS programme. The SHG group, which is based at Bolagarh, has been thus disengaged from the project as a follow-up action by the State Women and Child Welfare Department.
The ICDS scheme was launched with the objectives of improving nutritional and health status of children in the age group of 0-6 years, to lay the foundation for proper psychological, physical and social development of the child, to reduce the incidence of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition and school dropout rates, to achieve effective coordination of policy and implementation amongst various departments to promote child development among others.
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