Beautification gets precedence here

Of the 4,080 anganwadi centres in the district, 3,822 do not have their own buildings. While 517 centres are functioning from unsafe structures, construction for 238 buildings is underway. In the unsafe buildings, walls have developed wide cracks with protruding iron rods.

Following an instruction of District Collector Akhila Bihari Ota, officials of District Social Welfare office have surveyed all these centres and submitted a report to the State Government on Friday. The centres sans own buildings are either operating from neighbouring school buildings, thatched houses or under trees or in the open.

It is alleged that many of the centres functioning in their own buildings lack basic amenities. While the officials cite lack of adequate funds in case of anganwadi centres running without their own buildings, sources alleged that instead of repairing or constructing new buildings for the centres, the administration is spending crores on the beautification of the existing centres.

A social activist, Dilip Parida, alleged that due to lack of basic facilities that were supposed to be made available at anganwadi centres, thousands of children in the district are found to be suffering from severe malnutrition with the infant mortality rate remaining high.

“The anganwadi centres for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers in the district are in a pathetic state with over 70 per cent of them operating in unhygienic accommodations without any

Condition of these centres in tribal- dominated areas like Nilagiri, Oupada, Soro, Khaira and Jaleswar is more alarming. Though the government had sanctioned ` 5 lakh to each of the 238 centres for construction of buildings in the last fiscal, work has been sluggish due to administrative apathy. While work order has been awarded for 188 centres, land for 18 centres has not been demarcated yet.

Additional District Social Welfare Officer Sibaram Dhal said where there is no house, the centres are functioning from neighbouring school premises. “We have shifted the centres operating from unsafe structures to either school or private buildings. We are regularly monitoring the Anganwadi centres and sub-centres,” he added.