Status of ICDS Centers of Bengaluru District of Karnataka State

Karnataka is a progressive state and has been highly proactive in the implementation of Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) scheme. Nonetheless, the benefits of the program are not distributed as per the need of the regions within the state of Karnataka, hence resulting in varied malnourishment, morbidity and mortality levels across different regions. In this context the study aims at examining the magnitude of state intervention in terms of the financial inputs and the program coverage on malnutrition, morbidity and mortality. The study was conducted in the Bangalore urban district of Karnataka state and data was collected from the three project areas namely Bangalore urban taluk, Bangalore rural taluk and Anekal taluk. The study found that children enrollment for supplementary nutrition and health services are good compared to those who attend pre-school non-formal education in ICDS centers. 40% of the aganwadi centers do not have basic amenities like lighting, drinking water, etc. Health officials and other supervisors visit these centers with a frequency of one month to three months. Once in two months, health check will be carried out by the Health Officer. Predominantly, the malnourished and major cases will be treated for referral care and based on the need they will be referred to General Hospital, Nutrition Rehabilitation Centers.