By IANS
New Delhi : The government has invited private players to plug the loopholes in its programme to fight child malnutrition, the world’s largest such effort.
Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury announced the invitation at a national workshop on public-private partnership in the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) here Monday.
The ICDS is the world’s largest state-run programme to prevent and correct child malnutrition, catering to over 60 million children through 900,000 aanganwadis or delivery centres.
The minister conceded that though ICDS was conceived as purely a government programme, the need for private stakeholders to participate in the implementation was felt over time.
“With the gradual passage of time through field experience, it was felt that the programme could yield much better results if participation of the private sector is also elicited in its implementation,” said Chowdhury.
So far, voluntary organizations and local village authorities have been stakeholders in the welfare scheme.
“The government is of the view that ICDS could be developed as people’s programme with the partnership of the private sector which would be mutually beneficial to all concerned,” she added.