NE: Welfare measures for children to be taken up

Imphal, Oct 20: With a view to fighting malnutrition between the age group of 0 to 6, the Centre has released a sum of Rs 2155.18 crore during the current year under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme in the entire country.

The focus will be to improve the nutritional status of children, pregnant and lactating mothers, State Family Welfare officials said here today adding, if adequate food supplements were not given, children and pregnant mothers would face physical problems and overall development of children would be affected.

If the schemes were properly implemented, the poor parents would be benefited, officials added.

He said Manipur will get about Rs 1435.36 lakh, while other North Eastern states like Arunachal Pradesh will get Rs 886.75 lakh, Asom will get the maximum amount of Rs 7931.1 lakh, Meghalaya Rs 870.16 lakh, Mizoram Rs 556.96 lakh, Nagaland Rs 1241.90 lakh, Sikkim Rs 217.47 lakh and Tripura Rs 1274.63 lakh during the current fiscal.

The Centre will provide 50 per cent cost of the supplementary nutrition to the States and the scheme has now been extended to 546.31 lakh beneficiaries, including 452.88 lakh children, 93.42 lakh pregnant and lactating mothers, through a network of about 7.45 lakh Anganwadis in the country, officials added.

Officials admitted that the distribution system needs to be strengthened, as the scheme has been in vogue since 1975 . The main beneficiaries should be those below the poverty line, officials added.

UNI