Khammam: The anganwadi teachers will get rice from Fair Price shops from February 1.
The reason for this decision is to maintain transparency in the items being supplied to the anganwadis. So far, the rice was being supplied from mandal level stock points to the anganwadi centres.
There are 1,605 main and 232 mini anganwadi centres under seven ICDS projects in the district. There are 23,653 children between the ages of three to six years and 17,874 pregnant and new mothers in these centres and the government is extending nutritious food to these sections for better growth of the children. Items like egg, rice, milk and balamritham will be served to them.
Meanwhile there have been allegations that the items supplied to these centres are not proper.
The misuse of items were exposed recently while checking the supply of the items from the godowns. About 13,356 quintals of rice is required to be supplied to these centres in a year. There is a gap between the demand and the supply of rice released from MLS points to the anganwadi centres.
As the first step to transparency, the government wanted to streamline the rice supply. It has been decided to supply rice from the Fair Price shops. The Fair Price shop dealers and anganwadi in-charges will be held responsible if any discrepancy is found in the rice quantity.
The transport cost will be paid by the ICDS department to the FP shop dealers for transporting it to the anganwadi centres. The anganwadi teachers will have to come to their local FP shops and get their share of rice from the FP shops through the bio-metric system.
Each child will get 75 grams of rice per day and pregnant women and new mothers will be given 150 grams a day. It is expected that the new system will check all irregularities.
