Anganwadis across India are currently busy meeting an end-of-the-month target: Ensuring Aadhaar verification of children who are beneficiaries of the Centre’s Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). According to official UIDAI records, only about 30 million children have Aadhaar numbers. To put this in context, this is about 36 per cent of the children enrolled under Anganwadis.
Many workers told Down To Earth that Anganwadi centres received a directive in April from central government’s Ministry of Women & Child Development. The orders said they must mandatorily link beneficiaries’ identities with their Aadhaar numbers.
The linking is compulsory for beneficiaries to access supplementary nutrition and free food provided at 13.89 lakh Anganwadi centres.
At present, around 82.89 million children under six years of age are enrolled with Anganwadi centres. This is three times the total number of children under six years that have Aadhaar.
— source downtoearth.org.in | Shagun | 12 Jul 2022