400 districts already covered by the Strengthened & Resurrected ICDS Scheme Remaining districts to be covered in the current year

An amount of Rs. 1626748.57 lakhs was released to States by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development under the ICDS Scheme in the year 2013-14 against a release of Rs. 1570149.59 lakhs in the year 2012-13. In the current year (upto 30th June, 2014) an amount of Rs. 570651.62 lakhs has already been released to the States under the ICDS scheme. In order to address various programmatic, management and institutional gaps and to meet administrative and operational challenges, Government approved Strengthening and Restructuring of ICDS Scheme in September 2012 with an over-all budget allocation of Rs. 1,23,580 crore during 12th Five Year Plan. Roll out of Restructured and Strengthened ICDS has been taken place as per the following schedule: I. In 200 high burden districts in the first year (2012-13); II. In additional 200 districts in second year (2013-14) (i.e. w.e.f. 1.4.2013) including districts from special category States and NER; III. In remaining districts in third year (2014-15) (i.e. w.e.f. 1.4.2014). The key features of Strengthened and Restructured ICDS include addressing the gaps and challenges with (a) special focus on children under 3 years and pregnant and lactating mothers (P&L) (b) strengthening and repackaging of services including , care and nutrition counseling services and care of severely underweight children (c) a provision for an additional Anganwadi Worker cum Nutrition Counselor for focus on children under 3 years of age and to improve the family contact, care and nutrition counseling for P&L Mothers in the selected 200 high-burden districts across the country, besides having provision of link worker, 5% crèche cum Anganwadi centre (d) focus on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) (e) forging strong institutional and programmatic convergence particularly, at the district, block and village levels (f) models providing flexibility at local levels for community participation (g) introduction of Annual Programme Implementation Plan (APIP) (h) improving Supplementary Nutrition Programme including cost revision, (i) provision for construction and improvement of buildings of Anganwadi centres (j) allocating adequate financial resources for other components including Monitoring and Management and Information System(MIS), Training and use of Information and communication technology (ICT), (k) to put ICDS in a mission mode and (l) revision of financial norms etc.