Unrealistic plans stymie social welfare department: CAG

IMPHAL | July 27

Comptroller and Auditor General of India report for the year ended March 31, 2016 said that annual programme implementation plan of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) to improve the nutritional and health status and non-formal pre-school education of children in the age-group of 0-6 years with a view to reduce the incidence of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition and school dropout was not realistic and several deficiencies were noticed in the planning process.

As per report the social welfare department prepared annual plans for three years (2013-14 to 2015-16) but it did not prepare for the preceding two years (2011-12 to 2012-13), it said.

The report said the state could not utilize the available fund under the scheme during 2011-12 to 2015-16. Further, the state share was not fully released during the last five years. The report also said that there were delay in release of ICDS fund, violation of provision of Central Treasury Fund (CTR) by depositing fund under the major head 8449, Detailed Countersigned Contingent (DCC) bills submitted without vouchers and irregular withdrawal of Fully Vouched Contingent bills.

The report further said that construction of 336 Anganwadi Centre (AWC) buildings was not started in spite of payment of Rs. 5.52 crore. According to the report, there were 645 AWC building against 2709 AWCs. Out of these, 180 were pucca buildings, 127 were semi-pucca and remaining 336 were kutcha buildings. The audit report also could not find assurance on quality service in view of inadequate space and furniture at the AWCs.

Moreover, lack of hygiene and sanitation was noticed in the test checked AWCs. As per report, none of the test checked AWCs had drinking water facility, weighing machines and medicine kits, and also, Pre School Education (PSE) kits were inadequate. 

Supplementary nutrition was interrupted by up to six months in a year and instances of providing supplementary nutrition below the required 25 days in a month were also noticed. Such interruptions would also have adverse impact on other components of the scheme such as PSE as children are likely to be discouraged to attend for PSE in the absence of supplementary nutrition, the report added.

There was a loss of scheme fund of Rs. 5 crore due to excess engagement of UDC/LDC(96 regular clerical staff for the 43 ICDS projects) the social welfare department against the prescribed norms and infructuous expenditure of 4.24 crore on idle staff (29 drivers).

Furthermore, there was lack of monitoring and supervision of AWCs by ICDS officials. The report said coordination of policy and implementation amongst the various departments to promote child development was not achieved. Also, there were irregular implementation of Management Information System (MIS) in ICDS and implementation of Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) scheme.

The report recommended that the government may consider to assess infrastructure requirement and take appropriate steps to ensure provision of adequate infrastructure facilities to implement all the components of ICDS in an effective manner, to augment the capacity of the scheme functionaries to the required standards through timely training and in consonance with the targets fixed under state training action plan, to take up adequate steps to test the quality of supplementary nutrition items and strive for uninterrupted distribution, to strengthen monitoring of the construction of AWC buildings so as to ensure quality and their timely completion and strengthening and streamlining regular monitoring and supervision of ICDS projects and AWCs to facilitate effective follow-up.