Struggle for their rights
KATHYAYINI CHAMARAJ
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Despite the many challenges they face, anganwadi workers help the State achieve many of the Millennium Development Goals.
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PHOTO: VIVEK BENDRE
No infrastructure: Anganwadis need better facilities.
AT the all-India rally of thousands of anganwadi workers (AWWs) and helpers in Bangalore recently, Sakamma (name changed), from a far-off district of Karnataka, was seen eating rice and dal, which she had packed 24 hours earlier. She had come paying her own bus-fare, but she could not afford to buy food from a hotel. That the silicon plateau Bangalore, where some pay Rs. 1,000 for a single meal, was the venue for this meet helped throw up the contrasts between two Indias. Sakamma came hoping that adding strength to the AWWs' numbers would make the government pay heed to their demands.
Myriad tasks
AWWs are the modern-day Durgas, who with their mythical nine pairs of hands do myriad tasks for the government. In charge of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, they are the grassroots workers who help the State reach many of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). They work to reduce infant and maternal mortality and provide supplementary nutrition to prevent malnutrition among mothers and pre-school children. In India, all these indices are among the highest in the world. They register all births and deaths and provide pre-school education to all three-to-six-year-olds. All these tasks are essential for lifting India from its abysmal 127th position in the UNDP's Human Development Index.
AWWs also perform a number of tasks unconnected with the ICDS. They conduct surveys for various departments; form self-help groups of women; support Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan; encourage small savings; create awareness about AIDS, TB and social evils like dowry, detect bogus ration cards and also do the more mundane tasks of bringing crowds and arranging flowers, food and tea for every village function.
Despite performing these important government tasks, they are not government servants, but "voluntary workers" who earn an "honorarium" of Rs. 1,000, with helpers receiving Rs. 500. (Some States supplement the salaries.) "Many AWWs do not receive even the meagre salary and increments on time," says S. Varalakshmi, Secretary of the Karnataka chapter of the All-India Federation of Anganwadi Workers and Helpers (AIFAWH).
The paradox is that AWWs look after the children of the poorest landless and agricultural workers, but are unable to feed their own children or send them to school. These women cannot be expected to be "social workers" because they are often widowed, deserted or destitute women, badly in need of employment. In view of all this, the major demand of the AWWs is to be recognised as government employees. There are about 7,00,000 AWWs in the country with an equal number of helpers. Thirty years after the ICDS was initiated in 1975, even their meagre wages have reached their current level only due to the long-standing struggles of their unions.
Need for day care
"Universal provision of day-care services for 0-6 year children are imperative in India, also because, in the unorganised sector, where around 96 per cent of the working women in the country are employed, they don't get any maternity leave or child care facilities," says K. Hemalata, All-India Secretary of AIFAWH.
Yet, the ICDS currently reaches only 34 million, or a third, of the total 160 million children in the country, says a report prepared by Jean Drèze and Shonali Sen, for the National Advisory Council. There are just 6,00,000 anganwadis as against 14,00,000 habitations in rural areas alone. Noting this inadequacy, the Supreme Court ruled in the Right to Food case in November 2001 that there should be an ICDS centre in every habitation. But this will not help, if the new centres are going to be more of the same kind that exist today.
Many AWCs have no proper buildings or furniture, lack safe drinking water, toilets, vessels, teaching aids, toys and playgrounds. Despite this, AWWs are expected to perform the miracle of providing total personality development and education of the children of illiterate parents.
But AIFAWH is against the opening of pre-primary schools attached to primary schools under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). Varalakshmi says, "The same resources could be used to strengthen the infrastructure of existing anganwadis for providing quality pre-school education instead of creating two parallel and competing but weak institutions".
End educational discrimination
Baragur Ramachandrappa, noted Kannada litterateur, speaking at the conference, reiterated the need to strengthen and universalise anganwadis to bring an end to the educational discrimination in the country.
Noted economist Jayati Ghosh, speaking at the conference, praised the ICDS scheme for being the "largest, cheapest and most efficient of its kind in the world". Efficient it has to be, for how else can one provide more than 300 feeding days in the year with as little infrastructure, resources and support as the AWWs get?
The AWWs are today's miracle women. They are often given irregular, inadequate and unwholesome food supplies, and often no money for fuel, and are expected to dish up something six days a week and wipe out the 50 per cent malnutrition among children.
Additionally, "AWWs are caught in the snare of globalisation. The government's reluctance to regularise them as government employees and also its attempts at privatising the anganwadi centres (AWCs) are all of a piece," says V.J.K. Nair, of CITU.
AIFAWH is also opposing the handing over of the management of AWCs to the panchayati raj and nagarapalika institutions. While this would appear to be an anachronism in this age, Hemalata says, "Local bodies currently do not have proper powers or finances. If they can be strengthened to provide better facilities to AWCs, we welcome it. But in the absence of proper service rules for the AWWs, many cases of sexual harassment by the panchayat pradhans have been reported, when AWWs are asked to get the pradhan's signature to get their honorarium or annual leave sanctioned". Varalakshmi echoes the need for "a united voice and joint fight at the national level" in support of the AWWs' struggle for institutionalising the ICDS. In this regard, one crore signatures have been obtained on a memorandum submitted to the HRD Minister from the communities which benefit from the AWCs.
The National Advisory Council has estimated that Rs. 17,000 crores is required to universalise the ICDS, and another Rs. 16,500 crores if the workers are to be regularised as government servants. This is still 0.6 per cent of GDP. Dr. Ghosh notes that just the increase in the defence expenditure has been twice this amount in the last two years. And contrary to doomsday prophecies when such amounts are asked to be spent on the social sectors, this increase in defence expenditure has neither led to inflation nor made the government bankrupt! Also, by using AWWs as "unpaid labour" for various tasks unconnected with the ICDS, the Government is already saving Rs. 1,000 crores! And if only the government would restore the tax:GDP ratio to its 1990-91 level, it could fully provide for the ICDS, the midday meal and employment guarantee schemes.
Considering the benefits to the state from the work of AWWs, their demands are truly "demands on behalf of the nation and not on behalf of themselves," as Dr. Ghosh averred.
(The All-India Federation of Anganwadi Workers and Helpers (AIFAWH) held its 5th Annual Conference in Bangalore between November 8 and 11, 2005.)
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