Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Group will develop 4,000 ‘next generation’ Anganwadis in the country at the cost of approximately ₹10 lakh each.

The pilot of such an Anganwadi, called Nand Ghar, was opened in Hasanpur village in Sonepat district of Haryana a few months ago.

A memorandum of understanding was signed between the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) and Vedanta here on Monday, under which the group has earmarked ₹400 crore to build these Anganwadi centres in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh among others, an official statement said.

Project objectives

The Anganwadis will be built in clusters of 25-30 in a particular district with multifunctional capabilities. The land for the purpose will be provided by the gram panchayats.

V Somasundaran, Secretary, Ministry of WCD, said, “We are planning to revamp these (Anganwadis) as enablers that will not only provide supplementary nutrition and basic healthcare services in villages but also function as a place to mobilise the village women to increase their participation in community development.”

A model Anganwadi will have solar power, television for e-learning, hygienic toilets and pure drinking water supply, the statement said.

Anganwadis fall under the ambit of the Integrated Child development Scheme (ICDS), the flagship programme of the Women & Child Development Ministry.

Budget cut

Incidentally, in this year’s budget, the Ministry’s outlay was drastically cut from ₹21,000 crore in 2014-15 to ₹10,286.73 crore in 2015-16.

The maximum allocation of ₹8,335.77 crore for ICDS is much lower than last year’s ₹18,195 crore, which is one reason for the Ministry’s bid to raise resources from corporates through public-private partnerships.

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