Social Welfare Minister Paul Lyngdoh on Tuesday chaired a review meeting on the implementation of the various schemes under the department.
The meeting has decided to construct 273 and upgrade over 2200 anganwadi centres across the state. Discussion also revolved around the need to appoint professionals in the department.
Addressing the media, Lyngdoh said one of the major weaknesses of the department is the lack of professional hands to prepare detailed project reports (DPRs) and also to prepare utilization certificates (UCs) on time.
“Therefore, there is a felt need to engage professionals who can liaison with the ministries in Delhi to facilitate early and prompt clearance of the various schemes, which were stuck due to our inability to meet the timeline required,” he said.
Principal Secretary in-charge of Social Welfare Sampath Kumar said this is because the social welfare department reports to five ministries of the Government of India that include Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Social Justice, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Minority Affairs and also sometimes DoNER.
“We have a small directorate. That is why strengthening of the directorate is going to happen. Directorate will be given some professional support so that it will be able to properly liase properly with the ministry so that we are not losing out in terms of the resources, we can actually access.”
Kumar also informed that the government has decided to construct and upgrade the anganwadi centres on a priority mission.
“About 50 million dollars is being currently earmarked for upgradation and construction of these anganwadi centres. As I said, the loan agreement has to be signed as we envisioned (doing this) through the ADB project besides additional funds available under MGNERGS,” he said.
He said, the decision has been taken after taking into consideration that one of the main challenges faced by such centres is infrastructure.
“Therefore, the department in collaboration with the C&RD department did a joint inspection of all the anganwadi centres in the state and based on that it was found that 273 centres need to be condemned and new centres have to be constructed. Over 2290 centres need upgradation,” he said.
Kumar said, “Decision has been taken to extend the entire project area under ICDS to the new (14) blocks by providing dedicated human resources like appointment of a CDPO and support system. Meghalaya has ICDS centres in 41 out of 55 blocks.”
He said that the deputy commissioners have been asked to come up with a proposal to set up new anganwadi centres in over 1500 uncovered villages.
“We also need to recruit new lady supervisors in those areas. A lot of discussion happened on how to build a system and how to strengthen the system,” he said.
On Integrated Child Protection Services (ICPS), the principal secretary said, “One of the decisions taken was that we requested the district teams to come up with identified lands to construct the homes for the children.”
“Besides that, a discussion also happened on DREAM on how we can make Meghalaya a drug free state, and how to reduce the substance intake. A lot of discussion happened. DREAM is going to the communities, where communities are taking the initiative to set up drug rehabilitation, so that process is also going to be initiated,” he said.