children's rt to food dharna and issues from that
Vandana Prasad
as part of the weekly rt to food dharnas that are going on this entire month, we did a children's right to food dharna outside shastri bhavan on the 15th.
the minister was not there so we met with JS Mr Sriranjan who is in charge of ICDS and knows us well.
his main thrust was that they are not keen to have legal entitlements for food and nutrition security for children because they are not ready to fulfill them with the poor support the icds currently has. we explained that it was a chicken and egg business and since the act was coming anyway leaving kids out of it was not helpful in any way.
as an aside to the bill - i asked him what they were planning for community based management of malnutrition. he said they had written to health to do some joint planning for this but health said they only wanted to take responsibility for facility based care of severe malnutrition. so we are back to the lack of dialogue between WCD and Health in this critical area.
for icds reforms in chosen 200 districts - it seems to be mostly BCC through a camp approach, but also 5% creches cum anganwadi and 2nd worker... when it will all happen GOK. they seem to be considering raising the allocation for SNP also.
re IGMSY - he said the pilot was 'not going well' and states would have to show more interest.
he was in a hurry and there was little detail. he said he would communicate our memorandum to the minsiter krishna tirath.
meanhwile, in this context; a paper written by sridhar dipa and myself on the operational confusions between icds and health vis a vis management of severe malnutrition has been accepted in principle by indian pediatrics and i will share it with all of you once it comes.
vandana