Ambala/ Kaithal, May 23
Something’s cooking in the anganwaris of Haryana and it is a lot more than just food. At least that’s the impression the colourful empty chairs, spread under the shade of a tree, on the premises of an anganwari centre in Ambala’s Panjokhara village, convey.

Workers and cooked food await children at the anganwari centre in Panjokra village of Ambala in Haryana. Tribune photo: Dev Dutt Sharma

Two women take turns to stir a pot of sweet porridge on the earthen ‘chuhla.’ The in charge, Jarnail, says the “nutrition” is meant for children. But where are they? In the registers, of course! Flip through the pages and a neatly marked attendance looks back at you. The children, however, are “missing.”

But Jarnail is ready with an answer to explain the children’s absence. “The children in the age group of three to six are too small to be on their own. So, they only come around noon with their utensils to take food. Based on that, we mark their attendance. We have 21 children and pregnant women enrolled with us,” she says.

Step into the store room, and there is rat-nibbled jaggery (gur) peeping out of the jute bags. There’s an expired stock of salt packets covered in cobwebs, drums full of unused wheat and more bags of puffed rice and wheat that are stacked in one corner. The in charge serves all this to children and pregnant women in the name of a “nutritious diet” everyday.

The situation at anganwari number 5 in the same village is even worse. Here, the cook pulls out “melted jaggery” from a drum. “It’s not bad. It has melted due to moisture,” she grins sheepishly, as she dumps a lump in water to mix it.

The same story repeats itself - huge supplies, poor storage and no children. The in charge, Ramana Devi, who is absent, arrives after a phone call. She explains that the food is meant for 36 women and children.

At the third anganwari, the in charge has stored some of the stock at her residence in “safe custody”. She maintains there is not enough space in her store to stock the entire ration meant for the beneficiaries. In Kaithal’s Keorak village, anganwari in charge Murti Devi is at pains to explain her absence on account of ill-health. There is practically nothing in the name of ration in her store. “The stock is at my place because there is no watchman here. The villagers break open the locks and steal our supplies. There is no one to guard our wheat why I took them to my place,” she says.

In Khurana village, in charge Rekha is home much before time. “I wasn’t keeping well,” she says. Here, too the ration stock is lying at her place. “I have dedicated an entire room to it. A new anganwari centre is in the offing. The stock meant for it is also with me,” she adds. Interestingly, the anganwari registers, too, are at her residence.

There were no children to be seen at any of the anganwaris surveyed by The Tribune.

With practically no monitoring, the anganwaris, over 17400 in number, set up for little children, it seems, are gradually going to the dogs. In fact, it would do the Haryana Government a world of good to replace aanganwadis with community kitchens instead if “feeding” hungry mouths is its only agenda.