THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State’s big fear that the Centre would dramatically cut down its assistance for the flagship Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme, under which anganwadis were run, has finally been put to rest. As it turned out, the Centre has only renamed the schemes and slashed just the salary component. Now, there will be an extra outgo of just Rs 117 crore annually. The earlier concern was that the Centre would cut down at least Rs 500 crore of its share for the functioning of these women and child schemes.
The issue of continuation of the ICDS scheme and some other child centric schemes of the Ministry of Women and Child Development beyond the 12th Five Year pan was under the consideration of the Centre for some time. “However, after a series of consultations and an array of petitions filed by concerned states, the Centre has retained the schemes,” a top Social Justice official said. The sub-schemes und-er the umbrella scheme ‘Integrated Child Development Services’ has, however, been renamed: Anganwadi services (for ICDS), scheme for adolescent girls (for SABLA), child protection services (for Integrated Child Protection Services), and National Creche Scheme (for Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme).
The ratio of salary component has been revised to 25:75 from 60:40 for certain posts like programme officers, statistical assistants. As for the remaining 850-odd ministerial employees, the Centre has refused to the pay their salaries, all of which now will have to be met from the state’s funds. In 2015, union finance minister Arun Jaitley had asked for a revision, in fact an upending, of the funding pattern for schemes like ICDS where the central component was between 75-100 percent.
In fact in Arun Jaitley’s 2015-16 Union Budget, no allocation was made for ICDS. The budget document had instead asked for a revision of the funding pattern; a clear hint that the Centre had plans to make the states bear most of the burden. “Then, we could absorb the cost as the Centre had granted the state over Rs 4000 crore as deficit financing,” a top Finance Department official said.
