Interstate Differences in the Performance of Anganwadi Centres under ICDS Scheme

Malnutrition is a severe problem among India’s women and children. The Integrated Child Development Services aims at providing supplementary nutrition, growth monitoring, immunisation, preschool education, health check-ups and referral to children between the ages of 0 and 6 years, as well as health- and nutrition-related education and facilities for pregnant women and lactating mothers. These services are provided through childcare centres, called anganwadis, with the primary aim of fighting malnutrition in utero, as well as in very young children. This article attempts to construct indices to measure the performance of these anganwadis across different states in India in terms of their availability of infrastructure, ease of accessibility for children with disabilities and skill level of the anganwadi worker in terms of her accuracy of knowledge about nutrition requirements of pregnant women and young children.