Meghalaya trying to spice up ICDS

India’s north-eastern state, Meghalaya, is trying to spice up the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme by adding local nutritional cuisine for the 4.98 lakh beneficiaries of the centrally-sponsored project.

The social welfare department has roped in the Home Science departments of St. Mary’s and Tura Government College to formulate local recipes for the Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP) under ICDS.

“Last month we have requested the Home Science departments of St. Mary’s and Tura Government College to formulate nutritional local cuisine for SNP,” Loma Jyrwa, Additional Director, social welfare department, said.

She informed, after the two colleges come up with the local recipes, a committee from the Health, Social Welfare department and the Food and Nutrition Board would test it and then give its approval.

According to the plan, the two departments would come with recipes that consist of seasonal crops, such as Maize, Beetroot, Carrots, leafy vegetable etc. in the meals. The reason for choosing the two colleges is to have local Khasi and Garo flavour in the diet and make it more attractive for the beneficiaries.

Now, children between the age group of 0-3 years are provided cooked Dalia (broken wheat) Suji (granulated wheat) and Milk as food supplement in the Anganwadi centres (courtyard shelter).

Children between the age group of 3-6 years and pregnant-lactating mothers are provided a meal of Soyabean, Bengal Gram, Dried Peas, Groundnut and Chocomalt –health drink – in pre-school and Anganwadi centres respectively. This free diet is uniform all over India in the ICDS programme.

However, for this hill state, wheat-based meals are not common with the people’s diet and therefore authorities here are trying to bring in some changes.

While Tura Government College in Garo Hills would come up with Garo cuisine for the three districts in Garo Hills, St. Mary’s College would similarly formulate a recipe for Khasi-Jaintia hills districts.


“We are working on it and soon we may have some local recipe for the ICDS beneficiaries,” Jyrwa said. She, however added, preparing a nutritious meal out the allocated Rs. 3.25 (0.07 US cent) for each beneficiary is difficult.

In many states like, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and others the state government provides Rs 2, in addition to the Rs. 3.25, for each beneficiary in the SNP component. Jyrwa said the ICDS would get a boost if Meghalaya government gives similar financial assistance to the SNP.

ICDS is a child-care and mother-care programme and is one of its kind in the world, where health education and also free nutritional meal is provided to children in Anganwadi centres and pre-schools by the government.

The central government funds 90 per cent, while respective state government generates the rest of the financial assistance for the projects’ implementation.

The objective behind ICDS is to reduce incidences of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition and school dropouts. During 2009-10 in Meghalaya, there were 735 undernourished children, 7404 children had nourishment concerns, but a large chunk (1.65 lakh) of the children were recorded having “normal health” under a World Health Organisation approved guideline.

Currently, there are 41 ICDS projects running in 5114 Anganwadi centres of the state. Jyrwa said, Anganwadi workers are conducting health education programmes and about 501 were audio-visual sessions. In all 68, 466 beneficiaries have participated in the sessions till June this year.