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Box No 4.11 SOCIAL SERVICE

Strengthening and Restructuring of ICDS

GOI has recently approved strengthening and restructuring of ICDS to address the
programmatic, management and institutional challenges and gaps of ICDS. It has been
decided to roll out restructured and strengthened ICDS in three phases. The restructured
ICDS will bring more detailed micro-planning and would increase accountability of states
through annual programme implementation plan and by setting ICDS in Mission Mode. Key
features of ICDS in Mission Mode are

• Programmatic, management and institutional reforms
• Anganwadi as “Vibrant ECD centre” through revised package of services
• Greater focus on less than three year’s children
• Strengthening early childhood education
• Care and counselling of mothers and family
• More than 2 lakh Anganwadis to be constructed
• More than 2700 new technical human resource
• More than 4.5 lakh additional Anganwadi workers/nutrition counsellors/link workers
Details are available in www. wcd.nic.in.

Child Budgeting

4.163 Child budgeting represents an important policy and analytical tool that can help us take stock
of our development investments for children, and identify glaring gaps in resource investment. A
vision about resource allocation for children will help making improvements in outcomes for them. So
far, Kerala has not conducted such an exercise. Since many programmes for children are run directly
by the state government, it is therefore important to examine the state budget from a child-centered
perspective.

Section 5
Drinking Water

4.164 Access to safe drinking water plays a fundamental role in economic and social development
of a country. Drinking water has a direct impact on health and is also central to human right and
personal dignity. Low consciousness about the scarcity of water and its life sustaining nature, and
inadequate comprehension of its economic value has resulted in its mismanagement, wastage, and
inefficient use. High density of population, rapid urbanisation and the impact of climate change, pose
serious threat to the availability of utilizable water in future, giving rise to the possibility of deepening
water conflicts among different user groups.

Status of Sources

4.165 Geographically, Kerala has plenty of water resources. Kerala is blessed with rains for a good
part of the year. Normal rainfall in the state is around 300 cm per year. It is one of the few states which
experiences both North East and South West monsoon. About 85 per cent of the annual rainfall is
received during the monsoon period, of which 70 per cent is during South West monsoon (June to
September) and 15 per cent during the North East monsoon (October to December). The remaining
15 per cent rainfall is received during non-monsoon period between January and May. However,
large spatial and temporal variation in the rainfall system often leads to the paradox of abundance

Economic Review 2014