Andhra Pradesh Lokayukta Justice P. Lakshmana Reddy has proposed immediate constitution of a village-level committee for the proper checking and monitoring of quality of food being served to children and pregnant women at anganwadi centres.
Following a complaint from B. Yerraiah, a resident of Kanimeraka village in Bondapalli mandal of Vizianagaram district, the Institution had asked for an inquiry into the allegations of supply of inferior quality of eggs to children and pregnant women. The Project Director, District Women and Child Development Agency, Vizianagaram, and Vizianagaram District Collector had, however, found no truth in those allegations as they could not be corroborated.
The Lokayukta, however, said that despite these reports from the two officers, it cannot be concluded that nothing wrong happened, and the committees, consisting of two members from the families of children (aged between 0-3 and 3-6) and two members from families with pregnant women, lactating mothers under the chairmanship of Gram Sarpanch shall be formed to supervise the supply of eggs at village level.
All the Project Directors have been instructed to take necessary steps to supply eggs to anganwadi centres in three phases., first phase between 1th and 10th of every month with yellow colour stamps, 2nd phase between 11th and 20th with green colour stamps and the 3rd phase between 21st to 30/31st of a month with blue colour stamps.
The anganwadi workers should ensure that the supplier weighs all the egg trays before delivery at the centre and ensure that the egg weighs 50 grams. Egg tray weight should be not less than 1,500 grams (30 eggs per tray) excluding tray weight.
While the complaint from Vizianagaram has been closed, any person making a complaint in future must include material evidence to show the lacuna in service/supply of materials.
