No justice here for women

KOCHI: Over 1,600 ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme) supervisors across the state, all women, who are in charge of the over 32,000 anganwadis in the state, are a harried lot as they have no office or chair to work from nor have any support staff despite being saddled with a huge pile of jobs. ICDS supervisors are grassroot-level field staff who belong to the Social Justice Department but work for the Local Self Government Department. There are 941 grama panchayats, 87 municipalities and six corporations under the LSG in the state. The ICDS supervisors monitor the activities in anganwadis and supply of nutritional food materials and also conduct awareness and monitoring activities for children below six years of age, pregnant women, lactating mothers, adolescent girls and the elderly. They also evaluate the quality of food stock supplied, ensure hygienic standards and maintain records. They are also in charge of the differently-abled.

The qualification-prescribed for an ICDS supervisor is degree but most of them have MSW, MSc Home Science, Food and Nutrition, MA Sociology and MSc Psychology while some even have PhD. Their long list of responsibilities is almost unending. These supervisors are supposed to make 20 qualitative inspections at the anganwadis every month, inspect around 20 registers, distribute honorarium to anganwadi staff, monitor production and supply of Kudumbasree nutrimix Amritham, vegetables, gas, electricity, ensure passing of bills and provide fund for rents and conduct training for workers on book keeping.
They are also the drawing and disbursement officers (DDO) for supplementary nutrition project, and are responsible for the scholarship of differently-abled children, running buds school for them (staff salary, food, vehicle maintenance, fuel), and for their rehabilitation. Recently the ICDS supervisors were also given the responsibility of procuring coats for the aged and setting up of 3-G anganwadis.

“Doctors of PHC/CHC are supposed to be the implementing officers for the distribution of helping aids  for the differentially-abled, but they are reluctant to do this project, so panchayats put pressure on us to implement this project too,” said an ICDS supervisor . The ICDS supervisor is also the convener of the jagratha samitis formed to protect women, children, the aged and the ICPC-Child Protection Committee. She has to convene monthly sector meetings, ensure flexi fund distribution, find out land for rented anganwadi centres and undertake building construction if needed, attend project-level helper and worker meetings every month, attend different meetings convened by various departments and convene grama sabhas for differently-abled.

“We have to conduct ration card hearing adalaths, survey of migrant population, organise well recharging committees, ODF survey, life mission survey and disability survey, maintaining joint SB accounts of around 30 people, treasury accounts and conduct frequent visits to treasury to pass bills, various pension schemes and reporting for various schemes. In fact the original responsibility in implementing many of these projects rests with other departments but they refuse to do and we have become hapless victims by being made to handle them also," she said. "In each panchayat an ICDS supervisor is supposed to implement projects worth Rs 50 lakh under the plan fund in a year. Sanghya e-billing system of LSGD is used for the implementation of all these projects. But no technical support is given for this time-consuming process,” said another ICDS supervisor.

The ICDS supervisors have to report to the Child Development Project Officer (CDPO) at the block level every Wednesdays and also work with them for the first five working days on the tasks given by the CDPO. They also have to undertake various orientation camps including on POCSO Act and they are accountable to the State Audit Department. They have to undertake online works including Aadhar entry and financial assistance reporting for e-kshema (online data entry of personal details of anganwadi workers and helpers), geo-tagging-location (geographical mapping of anganwadi centre and data entry of relevant details by downloading a department software) and Nireeksha updation (a software developed to monitor the functions of supervisors). 

“We are not provided any tablets to do the work and instead have been asked to do things by downloading the software to our mobile phone. We were even given an ultimatum to complete the tasks by the higher officials recently,” said the supervisor. They have to co-ordinate social auditing of anganwadi centres and in each panchayat approximately 150 people are to be trained by ICDS supervisors in this regard. Recently in the case of Aadhar enrollment it was threatened that no Central government funds will be made available if the data entry is not completed, she pointed out. “We don’t have a chair while even VEOs who are just SSLC qualified and have less duties are provided with office space. We don’t have a computer system or internet facility. We are using the desktops of clerks, that too if they are willing to spare it, to do our job. We have a lot of data and work sheets to be filled and to be uploaded into various sites. There is no vehicle provided for inspections and we even face threat from animals on the field. In some places due to staff shortage, one ICDS supervisor is in charge of two panchayats which accentuates our work load,” she said.

“Despite the heavy work load our salary scale remains comparatively low and we are provided travelling allowances as that of last grade servants. Nobody is there to assist us, no clerks, no office attendant or no data entry operator. While our probation is never declared on time, the promotions are almost nil. Most of us are retiring in the entry cadre itself. Clerical staffs get 50 percent reservation that blocks our promotion chances,” the ICDS supervisor said. “Some of the practices by higher officials are unexplainable. Same data may be asked by them 1000 times without any logic. There is no consideration that women are working in this field and we are denied our self respect and esteem. We may be belonging to the social justice department but we are denied justice,” she concluded.