Conclusion

The Union Government has been spending thousands of crore of rupees every year through the networks of AWCs for reducing malnutrition among the children from the age group of zero to five+ years. One of the important findings of the study is that the children in the Normal grade are found to be 77.4% of the total sample size which means that in spite of a lot of bottlenecks, the malnutrition has been reduced among the children of 0 to 5 years of age. As envisaged from the field study, people are well aware of the ICDS Programme and are sending their children to AWCs. However, the children from remote areas are not able to avail these facilities. The opening of public nursery school in urban and rural areas poses a great threat to the enrollment of children in AWCs nowadays unless the infrastructural and other facilities of AWCs are upgraded. The working conditions and remuneration of AWC workers needs to be looked at sympathetically.

Integrated Child Protection Scheme

Integrated Child Protection Scheme is being implemented by Union Ministry of Women and Child Development as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme from 2009-10. It is based on the cardinal principles of "protection of child rights" and the "best interest of the child". Its objective is of creating a safe and secure environment for children in conflict with law as well as children in need of care and protection. It is a comprehensive scheme to bring several existing child protection programmes under one umbrella, with improved norms. Key programmatic components of the ICPS include:

♤ Emergency outreach services through the Childline 1098 helpline

♤ Open shelters for children in urban and semi-urban areas

♤ Family based non institutional care through sponsorship, foster-care, adoption and after- care,

♤ Institutional care through children’s homes, shelter homes, observation homes, special

homes and specialised homes for children with special needs, and

♤ Grant-in-aid for specific need-based or innovative projects.

Performance Evaluation of ICPS

A report published by “Save The Children” has highlighted following points about the