The Anganwadi Supervisor is supposed to inspect the Anganwadi Centres in a particular sector and see that they are functioning properly and the ICDS Scheme is being implemented in letter and spirit. But several of these workers are suffering due to lack of any knowledge regarding the policies of the Government, a lack of proper training, so as to be able to understand the problems arising in the implementation of the schemes or gather expertise during field work, and an inability to conduct informed meetings for ensuring proper implementation of the schemes; hence the volunteers develop an ‘employee mentality’, i.e. they mechanically keep working without applying their minds. They are also at a loss regarding changes required for making the scheme successful, because they are not involved in the process of designing any of the schemes.
Also, there is no provision for periodical assessment of the problems being
faced during implementation of schemes; on the other hand the officials have
hardly any experience of the problems being encountered during field work, and
hence, are unable to give positive inputs.
The Anganwadi Supervisors are made to work in trying conditions and they suffer
both due to being responsible for inspection and monitoring of the AWCs, as
well as on account of being women. Being Supervisors, they are supposed to have
departmental system of transport, which is never available. According to norms,
a Supervisor has to be in charge of 25 Centres, but due to lack of
appointments, they have to visit 50-60 Centres. After covering them, they are
supposed to submit a report at the Project Office, which is around 15-30
kilometres away from the area of work. In tribal areas, no transport is
available, due to which the women workers have to go on foot. Many times,
untoward incidents occur, or males accompanying them try to take advantage of their vulnerable condition; but the requests of
the workers for proper transport fall on deaf ears.
They are not even provided with two-wheelers and cannot demand transport costs.
When a CDPO has to mobilise Supervisors, and if he/she has
no means of transport at his/her disposal, work
suffers. The Anganwadi Centres remain neglected and are managed in the most
callous manner.
Anganwadi workers have often complained that the procedure of their appointment
is not transparent; hence there is a demand for peoples’ intervention in the
entire process from their side. For example, it is extremely difficult to get
some of the workers to perform their duties, since their appointments are
political.They are wives or daughters of powerful Block Pramukhs and Gram Pradhans, who do not allow them to work
outside their homes even if they want to. But
the Supervisors and other officials cannot take them to task for fear of their
powerful political links. This issue had been taken up with
the P.M. by Smt. Chandresh Kumari, M.P., Jodhpur.
But so far, there is no solution in sight.
According to the Government’s guidelines, every Anganwadi Supervisor has to be
accompanied by an Anganwadi worker, so that the process of inspection of
Centres and reporting to the Anganwadi Offices becomes
easy. But this is rarely observed. The leaders of the Anganwadi Supervisors Association say that the
Supervisors are the backbone of the ICDS. But they
have to perform tasks which are not allocated to them as per the manual, for
example, opening the Centre, doing clerical work of keeping
records etc., doing the work allotted to the CDPO,
maintaining the store, doing pulse polio and other vaccination work, doing
election related work, distributing rations, doing the work
of Block Level Officers, doing Widow and Old age
Pension related work. Thus, their own responsibilities take a back seat.This
has led to
Supervisors getting discredited, so that
departmental action has been initiated against them in several instances. Gender disparity also exists in
terms of honorarium and facilities as well as transport
allowance.The clerks, CDPOs and DPOs as well as peons take their T.A. and D.A.
but the Anganwadi supervisors, who are basically field
workers have to spend from their honorarium for
going to different anganwadi centres.
Then, there are many Anganwadi workers who have been promoted to Anganwadi
Supervisors
but actually are not educated enough to qualify for
the job. Some are old and infirm and some have
chronic health problems, hence they are unable to do field-work. As a result,
they begin to
depend on male workers-peons, office clerks,
drivers and officers, who find it quite convenient to exploit them economically or otherwise. This
also leads to unsatisfactory performance and poor
quality of work in ICDS. The younger worker-recruits who have been appointed in
the 1985-87 batch are better educated and are able to
give a much better performance. It would improve
the quality of work considerably, if they were promoted to the post of
Supervisors and the ICDS would immensely benefit
from this.