Article:
Tracking movement and advancing the welfare of migrant workers and children contribute significantly to their overall wellbeing, particularly with schemes provided by the government. In order to streamline these efforts, the Maharashtra government recently developed an innovative Migration Tracking System (MTS) application.
Maharashtra’s Innovative Solution: MTS
The Migration Tracking System, primarily a website-based application, is designed to map and track the movement of Vulnerable Seasonal Migrant Workers utilizing individual unique identity numbers. This unique application is targeted at migrant beneficiaries, including children aged up to 18 years, lactating mothers, and pregnant women registered with the anganwadi centers. The primary goal is to track them efficaciously and ensure the portability of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) such as nutrition provision, immunization, and health check-ups for their families in their destination districts within or outside the state.
Understanding ICDS
The Umbrella ICDS represents a centrally sponsored scheme run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, with its inception dating back to 1975. It incorporates multiple schemes aimed at fostering early childhood care and development, encompassing children aged 0-6 years, pregnant women, and lactating mothers.
Key Schemes under the ICDS Umbrella
The schemes under ICDS are diverse, with each targeting a specific demographic or objective:
– Anganwadi Services Scheme: A holistic programme that offers six critical services ranging from supplementary nutrition and non-formal pre-school education to nutrition & health education, immunization, health check-up, and referral services.
– Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana: Provides direct cash incentives to the account of Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers during pregnancy and lactation based on certain conditions.
– National Creche Scheme: Delivers day-care facilities to children aged 6 months to 6 years of working women.
– Scheme for Adolescent Girls: Targets out-of-school girls (age group 11-14) and strives to uplift their social status through nutrition, life skills, and home skills.
– Child Protection Scheme: Aims to improve the lives of children in distressing conditions while curtailing instances of abuse, neglect, exploitation, and abandonment.
– POSHAN Abhiyaan: Seeks to minimize stunting, under-nutrition, anemia, and low birth weight instances by targeting malnutrition and anemia among young children, adolescent girls, pregnant women, and lactating mothers.
Main Aims of ICDS
The primary objectives of Integrated Child Development Services underscore improved child health and development. These include enhanced nutritional and health status of children aged 0-6 years, reduction in mortality, morbidity, malnutrition and school dropout occurrences, better policy coordination amongst departments, mother empowerment, and facilitation and education of Adolescent Girls to self-reliance and awareness.
Similar Government Initiatives
Other similar government schemes advancing these goals include the National Health Mission (NHM), Mid Day Meal Scheme, and National Nutrition Strategy. While NHM focuses on strengthening health systems in rural and urban areas, the Mid Day Meal Scheme ensures every child aged six to fourteen years studying in classes I to VIII is provided with a hot cooked meal, free of charge. The National Nutrition Strategy, on the other hand, aims at reducing all forms of undernutrition by 2030.
UPSC Civil Services Exam Previous Year Question: Inclusive Governance (2012)
In the UPSC Civil Services Exam of 2012, a question on ‘Inclusive Governance’ was asked. Essentially, systems and processes that increase people’s participation in decision-making are indicative of inclusive governance, promoting effective policy implementation. This includes initiatives like increasing public health expenditure, strengthening the Mid-day Meal Scheme, and involving citizens in local developmental planning. However, permitting Non-Banking Financial Companies to do banking doesn’t have a direct link with inclusive governance.
