Funds, faith wall hits move to put egg on Anganwadi menu

Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh government's proposal to introduce egg in the diet of children in anganwadis to fight malnutrition has hit twin hurdles of faith and funds crisis.

While the BJP has declared to oppose the move, describing it a “conspiracy to change dietary habit of innocent children against traditions and faith of their families”, the state finance department has expressed its inability to allocate funds to implement the proposal.

The women and child development (WCD) department had prepared a plan to introduce egg on the anganwadi menu in 89 tribal blocks in the first phase after the tribal advisory council (TAC) of Madhya Pradesh headed by chief minister Kamal Nath cleared the proposal.

Curiously, the state finance department has sought queries from the WCD department whether any survey on the proposal was done and why the department required additional funds to implement it.

The finance department has suggested that the WCD should arrange funds allocated under various schemes of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) in order to implement the proposal.

“We have submitted an estimation of Rs 113 crore to implement the proposal in 89 tribal blocks in the first phase. The proposal will be extended to other blocks after assessing its impact in the tribal blocks. But, the state finance department has shot down our proposal to sanction money citing its limitations,” commissioner of state women and child development department Naresh Pal Kumar told this newspaper here.

The Opposition BJP has threatened to thwart any move to include egg on the anganwadi menu.

“It is a conspiracy to change the dietary habit of innocent children from vegetarian to non-vegetarian against traditions and faith of their families. The move will trigger a cultural conflict leading to social unrest in the state,” warned state BJP spokesman Rajneesh Agrawal.

Child health care expert Sachin Kumar Jain, however, dismissed such an apprehension saying that no diet would be imposed on anybody as the egg on the menu would be made optional.

As many as 7,287,819 malnourished children, including around 10,00,000 tribal children, have currently been enrolled in 97,135 anganwadi centres in MP.

Madhya Pradesh has 42 per cent stunted, 18.6 per cent severely stunted, 25.8 per cent wasted, 9.2 per cent severely wasted, 42.8 per cent underweight and 14.3 per cent severely underweight children below the age of five.

“Egg is a very good source of nutrition and is a complete food,” Mr Jain said quoting report of National Institution of Nutrition, Hyderabad.