BENGALURU: The Karnataka government is slowly readying to reopen Anganwadis. With this, the learning centres that double as nutritional support ones, will open to students aged 3-6 years after nearly a year of closing, since the lockdown.This decision by the Health and Family Welfare Department comes weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the states and Union territories to open Anganwadi centres. The court had left it to the discretion of the State Disaster Management Authority to open these centres outside containment zones.
Meanwhile, centres within containment zones will remain shut during the isolation period prescribed.
A state-level committee too insisted on January 30 on opening of Anganwadis, said an official from the department. The committee headed by former judge Justice A N Venugopala Gowda was constituted by the Karnataka High Court in January to monitor malnutrition in children and lactating mothers.The reopening of these centres was then discussed at the secretary and ministerial levels before the minister was said to have given his consent in the first week of February.
The department has readied orders for sanitizing the centres and is preparing to reopen the Anganwadis, which address the health and nutritional needs of young children and lactating mothers under the Integrated Child Development Services Scheme.
“Classes will be held in rotation, as a maximum of five students will be allowed to attend at a time. Food kits will be continued for students,” said a top official from the department.In the previous year, 16.21 lakh children between ages 3 and 6 had enrolled for Anganwadis across the state, said the official. The numbers have not fluctuated much this year.
The official said that children of migrant workers too seem to have enrolled in the regions they migrated back to.Meanwhile, classes 9-12 have resumed completely, and the Vidyagama programme continues to be implemented in schools for classes 6-8. However, the department is yet to announce the reopening of primary and higher primary classes from grades 1-8.