Page 201 - economic review

173

b. Cochlear Implantation SOCIAL SERVICE

4.150 The project of KSSM provides cochlear implantation to hard of hearing children in the age
group of 0-5 years. During 2013-14, the project assisted 202 children and 69 children from 1/4/2014
to 30/9/2014.

c. Snehapoorvam

4.151 The scheme provide financial support to children who lost both parents or either of them and
the other alive parent is not in a position to look after the child due to financial crisis. The programme
implemented by KSSM benefited 9411 students up to March, 2013 and 12094 students from 1/4/204
to 30/9/2014.

2. Child Development

4.152 Holistic development of child includes all areas of growth together with physical, mental,
emotional and social development. Kerala has always been in the forefront for promoting the above
four domains of child development. However, mental health problems of adolescents, nutritional
security issues, learning and educational problems, development delays and disabilities, etc present
a huge challenge for the Government.

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)

4.153 It is one of the flagship programmes of GOI for early childhood development. The scheme
details will be available in www.wcd.nic.in. Inadequate infrastructure facilities are a major constraint
of ICDS to assure quality of service delivery through AWCs. As per the information available, in
Kerala about 59 percent AWCs are functioning in government owned buildings and 36 percent from
rented buildings. 43 percent AWCs are having drinking water facilities and 17 percent AWCs have
child friendly toilet facilities. District wise beneficiaries of ICDS in Kerala during 2013-14 is given in
Appendix 4.71.

4.154 As on March, 2014, 258 ICDS projects and 33115 AWCs are operational across the state,
covering 10.28 lakh beneficiaries under supplementary nutrition and 4.42 lakh children in the age
group 3-6 years under pre-school education. The nutritional status of children under ICDS in Kerala
(as on 31.03.2014) reveals - out of the 16.98 lakh total children weighed (<6 years), 76.09 percent
are normal, 23.49 moderately malnourished and 0.42 severely malnourished.

4.155 ICDS is the only flagship programme that is not implemented in Mission Mode.Inadequate
service delivery and co-ordination, limited community ownership and support, poor focus on under
3 years and Early Childhood Education (ECE), weak convergence of programmes / services
particularly between ICDS and other flagship schemes like NRHM, Mid Day Meals, etc are some of
the performance problems of ICDS requiring immediate attention.

Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls

4.156 As a centrally sponsored scheme, launched in Kollam, Idukki, Malappuram and Palakkad
districts, it aims at empowering the nutritional and health status of the adolescent girls in the age
group of 11-18 years through 84 ICDS projects of the districts. Extending the scheme to the districts
covering coastal and tribal areas of the State was the latest development. During 2013, the scheme
assisted 239781 beneficiaries and covered1820 beneficiaries for vocational training.

Economic Review 2014