Launching the "Early Childhood Care Curriculum" for anganwadis, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that anganwadis would be developed at par with high-end private expensive playschools, wherein the poor children will have access to all modern amenities and infrastructure.
Further, in what can be termed as a giant leap towards digitalisation of anganwadis, smart-phones were distributed to 10,000 anganwadi workers.
Kejriwal and his Deputy Msh Sisodia on Wednesday addressed more than 10,000 anganwadi workers at the Indira Gandhi Stadium here. The mega-programme was orgsed to distribute smartphones to all workers in an effort to digitise all operations of the anganwadi sector.
"There is a perception that anganwadis are merely centres for providing food to children. Children would come, they were given food and sent back. Now an Early Childhood Care Curriculum is being introduced so that anganwadis provide the kind of care and education that is provided at the expensive playschools. Even the poor will have access to the facilities that the rich do. Anganwadis will now be developed into playschools," said Kejriwal.
The smartphones being provided are aimed at reducing the administrative burden of anganwadi workers and improving the efficiency of the department. It will also help to maintain a real-time monitoring mechsm of the status of all centres. This will be a major step towards enhancing the quality of anganwadis in the city.
Sisodia, who is also the Minister for Women and Child Development, said, "Across the world, it has been acknowledged that 80 per cent of children's brain development takes place by the age of 6. But India has continued to neglect early childhood care. Delhi's Anganwadi reforms are an effort to change that, and build a model for the country."
"Delhi model of anganwadi reforms will be lead the way for the country," he said.
"Whenever governments have to provide electronic appliances to people on a large scale, ordinarily they provide substandard products. But we are providing you with high-end phones, ones that ministers, IAS officers use. You don't have to worry about the data charges either, the government will take care of it, " the Chief Minister assured.
"Earlier you would have to maintain 11 or 12 registers monthly at each Anganwadi. Now using this smartphone, you will be able to enter everything into our database and the government will directly have access to that information. This is a digitization of the entire Anganwadi sector that will not only benefit you but also the department," he added.
( With inputs from ANI )