📰 Hyderabad’s ‘rocketmen’ duo aim for the skies
Their startup test-fired India’s first privately-built fully cryogenic engine last month
•When Skyroot Aerospace successfully tested Dhawan-1 last month, it became the country’s first privately developed fully cryogenic rocket engine running on two high-performance rocket propellants — liquid natural gas (LNG) and liquid oxygen (LoX). The indigenous engine was developed using 3D printing with a superalloy.
•That has set the city-based firm on a higher trajectory with an ambitious plan to launch the first private space launch vehicle using cryogenic engine Vikram-2 into orbit in two years. Before that, the two co-founders C. Pawan Kumar (IIT-Kharagpur, 2012 batch) and Naga Bharath D (IIT-Madras, 2012 batch) plan to put its first launch vehicle, 20-metre tall Vikram-1 based on solid propulsion engine, in space. This was after successfully designing and developing the solid propulsion rocket engine, the first private firm in the country to do so.
Passion for space tech
•“We are space enthusiasts, always wanted to become entrepreneurs and capture emerging opportunities in the space sector. The world over, the private sector is driving innovations at a low cost. There was no regulatory framework when we began three years ago, but we are on the verge of taking off now testing multiple engines. Very few countries have developed a cryogenic engine,” said Mr.Pawan Kumar.
•“It took us a year to conceptualise our work. We knew it required a lot of research, but we were pretty sure of our skill set. We have been able to iron out the deficiencies with a rigorous review system,” Mr. Bharath chimed in.
•Incidentally, both were flatmates after being recruited by Indian Space Research Organisation, and worked on GSLV Mark III stage rocket before deciding to branch out on their own, together. “Our families supported us, realising our passion for space technology research though we were barely 30. We have been fortunate to have financial backing from Mukesh Bansal (Myntra founder), also a space enthusiast who believed in our dream. We are now a 100-member strong team,” they said.
•Skyroot is working simultaneously on different stages of both solid propulsion and liquid propulsion engines, named after eminent scientists, like Kalam (Abdul Kalam) series for the former and Dhawan (Satish Dhawan) while the launch vehicles themselves are named after Vikram Sarabhai. In December last year, the intrepid team successfully test-fired the solid propulsion rocket engine.
National award
•The firm has already won a national award for startups in space research and had an online interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Our design is done here, manufacturing happens across the country, test-firing at Solar Industries site in Nagpur and tie-up with ISRO for launch facilities. The future is in small satellites for observation and communication through small rockets and it is a US$370 billion business, of which India has just 2% share,” they said.
Chief Justice Ramana suggests one central agency, with a degree of autonomy, for overseeing infrastructure development of subordinate courts in India
•Of a total of ₹981.98 crore sanctioned in 2019-20 under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) to the States and Union Territories for development of infrastructure in the courts, only ₹84.9 crore was utilised by a combined five States, rendering the remaining 91.36% funds unused.
•This underutilisation of funds is not an anomaly induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The issue has been plaguing the Indian judiciary for nearly three decades when the CSS was introduced in 1993-94.
•This is one of the reasons why the Chief Justice of India, N.V. Ramana, recently proposed creation of a National Judicial Infrastructure Authority of India (NJIAI), which will take control of the budgeting and infrastructure development of subordinate courts in the country.
•“Good judicial infrastructure for courts in India has always been an afterthought. It is because of this mindset that courts in India still operate from dilapidated structures making it difficult to effectively perform their function,” Chief Justice Ramana said on October 23 while inaugurating an extension wing building of the Bombay High Court Bench at Aurangabad.
State of infrastructure
•The Indian judiciary’s infrastructure has not kept pace with the sheer number of litigations instituted every year. A point cemented by the fact that the total sanctioned strength of judicial officers in the country is 24,280, but the number of court halls available is just 20,143, including 620 rented halls.
•Also, there are only 17,800 residential units, including 3,988 rented ones, for the judicial officers.
•As much as 26% of the court complexes do not have separate ladies toilets and 16% do not have gents toilets. Only 32% of the courtrooms have separate record rooms and only 51% of the court complexes have a library.
•Only 5% of the court complexes have basic medical facilities and, only 51% of the court complexes have a library. While the pandemic has forced most of the courts to adopt a hybrid system — physical and videoconferencing mode — of hearing, only 27% of the courtrooms have a computer placed on the judge’s dais with videoconferencing facility.
Greater autonomy
•Chief Justice Ramana, in his speech at the event, highlighted that the improvement and maintenance of judicial infrastructure is still being carried out in an ad-hoc and unplanned manner. He stressed on the need for “financial autonomy of the judiciary” and creation of the NJIAI that will work as a central agency with a degree of autonomy.
•Explaining the requirement for a greater autonomy for the NJIAI, a source familiar with the development in the Supreme Court, said, “The lack of one particular coordinating agency means each year the funds get lapsed. It remains underutilised.”
•This claim is supported by the fact that in 2020-21, of the ₹594.36 crore released under the CSS, only ₹41.28 crore was utilised by a single State — Rajasthan.
•The data released by the Department of Justice further revealed that in 2018-19, of the ₹650 crore released by the Centre under the CSS, the utilisation certificate was submitted by 11 States for a total of ₹225 crore.
•The current fund-sharing pattern of the CSS stands at 60:40 (Centre:State) and 90:10 for the eight north-eastern and three Himalayan States. The Union Territories get 100% funding.
•“If the scheme (NJIAI) is placed under the Government, it will be much like the current scheme of thing. Nobody will bother. There has to be a special purpose vehicle driven by a sense of belongingness and passion, with a degree of authority. That authority has to come from the Supreme Court,” the source said.
NALSA model
•The proposed NJIAI could work as a central agency with each State having its own State Judicial Infrastructure Authority, much like the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) model.
•It has also been suggested that the Chief Justice of India could be the patron-in-chief of the NJIAI, like in NALSA, and one of the Supreme Court judges nominated by the Chief Justice could be the executive chairman.
•But, unlike NALSA which is serviced by the Ministry of Law and Justice, the proposed NJIAI should be placed under the Supreme Court of India, the source said.
•“In the NJIAI there could be a few High Court judges as members, and some Central Government officials because the Centre must also know where the funds are being utilised,” the source said.
•Similarly, in the State Judicial Infrastructure Authority, he said, in addition to the Chief Justice of the respective High Court and a nominated judge, four to five district court judges and State Government officials could be members.
•“The Chief Justice is mindful of the fact that the High Courts are independent of the Supreme Court. The only time when the Supreme Court comes in the picture is the appointment of judges of the High Courts,” he said.
Proposal sent to Govt.
•Chief Justice Ramana said that he had sent the proposal for the establishment of the NJIAI to the Ministry of Law and Justice, and was “hoping for a positive response soon”. He has also urged Minister of Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju to expedite the process and ensure that the proposal to create the NJIAI with statutory backing is taken up in the winter session of Parliament.
•“Institutionalising the mechanism for augmenting and creating state-of-the-art judicial infrastructure is the best gift that we can think of giving to our people and our country in this 75th year of our Independence,” Chief Justice Ramana said.
📰 Be aware of bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies
Before debating whether to ban private cryptocurrenies, it is prudent first to understand what cryptocurrencies are
•Virtual currencies created using blockchain technology have been the subject of great speculation and discussion in recent times.
•Legendary investors Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet have gone as far as to call Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies ‘rat poison.’
•Before debating on whether to ban private cryptocurrency, it is prudent first to understand what cryptocurrencies are.
•Cryptocurrencies are digital encrypted tokens that can be transferred between two parties without the need for a centralised regulator.
•The facilitators of the transaction work to verify a transaction individually and maintain a public ledger open for anyone to see.
No intrinsic value
•The elimination of a centralised entity is why we see the word ‘decentralisation’ being thrown around very often. Cryptocurrencies are not ‘untraceable’ as most believe; in fact, it happens to be more traceable than currency notes due to the public ledger leaving a clear trail.
•In addition, when discussing the merits of cryptocurrencies, one must understand that it possesses no intrinsic value. Stocks provide partial ownership of a firm that produces goods and services, bonds provide a steady source of income, and gold has inherent metal value. Cryptocurrencies are non-productive assets that are merely traded because there is demand for it.
•Ex-RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan had stated recently in a TV interview that “a lot of cryptos have value only because there is a greater fool out there willing to buy”.
•Cryptocurrencies are eerily similar to the tulip mania of 1636, when tulips were being traded for the sake of turning a profit. Another essential point to note is that although theoretically there is a scarcity of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, that does not mean anything in terms of economics because there needs to be a particular purpose that will sustain demand for the asset.
•Some claim that Bitcoin and other private cryptocurrencies are a new revolution in currencies and the monetary system. No central bank or government around the world would be interested in relinquishing power over the money supply. Private cryptocurrencies being adopted as a legitimate currency in the nation will spell the end of regulation and economic intervention by the central bank. This is because central banks require the ability to manipulate the money supply to intervene during a crisis. Private cryptocurrencies strip the central bank of this power, leaving the central bank effectively unable to set interest rates and control the money supply efficiently. In a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, it would become challenging for monetary regulators to step in and aid a wounded economy.
•Therefore, it is improbable for any notable government to favour and encourage private cryptocurrencies for these reasons. Moreover, due to speculation, cryptocurrencies ensure that they can never act as a measure of the value of goods and services. For a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin to be accepted as a currency, it has to price goods. Bitcoin, an extremely volatile cryptocurrency (like its counterparts), cannot act as a currency in a stable economy.
Ban on cryptos
•Although a particular country can choose to ban private cryptocurrencies, that this does not mean anything to the asset as a whole is untrue. The significant advantage which cryptocurrencies pose, which is decentralisation, leads to its downfall. Any government with large enough pockets can decide to take down the cryptocurrency by destroying its monetary value. The incentive for miners and other participants to maintain the system is financial.
•If the price of a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin were to drop to 0, it would be devastating. The act of a significant government announcing its intention to take down cryptocurrencies would leave a considerable dent in the price. Additionally, cryptocurrency mining takes up a substantial amount of a country’s resources which could be put to more productive uses.
•It is crucial for governments worldwide to decide on a course of action regarding this growing technology and equip themselves accordingly.
•The longer it takes for regulators to implement a plan, the greater there is to lose as the amount of money being channeled into the asset grows further. Unfortunately, all bubbles come to an abrupt end leaving many financially distraught.
•Those who invest in cryptocurrencies need to understand that they are speculating rather than investing. It follows that while speculating, one takes comprehensive care to know what they are getting into. Therefore, it is vital that an individual does not stake their financial security upon this novel asset.
📰 Cooperation awaits its ‘finding Raiffeisen’ moment
In India, government control has only increased, violating a core cooperative principle of political neutrality
•‘Cooperation has failed, but cooperation must succeed,’ wrote the All India Rural Credit Survey Committee in 1954. These were the words of Venkatappiah, first Executive Director of Reserve Bank of India and member of the Committee. He later became Deputy Governor, and Chairman of State Bank of India, before chairing the Agricultural Credit Review Committee in 1969.
•This verdict came five decades after the first cooperative legislation of 1904. The Governor of the Madras Presidency, Lord Wenlock, was the first to seriously attempt replicating European cooperatives in India. Madras was ideal for this experimentation as it had similar institutions in its Nidhis. Nicholson, appointed by Wenlock in 1892 to report on the possibility of their implementation, summed up his 1895 report in two words: ‘Find Raiffeisen’.
Pioneers in Europe
•Nicholson was referring to Friedrich Raiffeisen, who along with compatriot Schulze-Delitzsch in Germany, and Luzzatti of Italy, pioneered cooperatives in Europe. Raiffeisen based them on the principles of self-help, self-governance, and self-responsibility. Known for their trustworthiness and resilience against financial crises, most were known as Raiffeisenbanks, spreading to other parts of Europe and America. Rabobank, the Dutch cooperative whose first two letters come from Raiffeisen, was the last triple A-rated bank.
•Nicholson wrote that the ‘future of rural credit lies with those who being of the people, live among the people, and yet by their intelligence, prescience and energy, are above the people’. He used Raiffeisen ‘not as indicative of a particular person or system, but of the zeal, energy, patience and continuous devotion so thoroughly exemplified in that great reformer, and of the spirit of co-operation, thrift, self and mutual help so thoroughly developed in the above and similar systems...’
The story in India
•Gilbert Slater, after joining Madras University in 1915 as its first Professor of Economics, went looking for the Raiffeisen that Nicholson’s province had. At the office of the Registrar of Cooperative Societies (RCS), he found the clerks sleeping, turbans placed next to inkpots, and no clue about the whereabouts of their boss, whose expertise was in the Tamil almanac.
•Better days came with his successor, F.R. Hemingway, ICS, who brought in Dr. John Matthai as Officer on Special Duty. The first Indian with a doctorate in Economics from the London School of Economics, Matthai worked for a year in Ireland with Sir Horace Plunkett, an expert in cooperation. He later became Slater’s colleague, and India’s Finance Minister.
•Sir Denzil Ibbetson, moving the Cooperative Societies Bill on October 23, 1903, had said that the Bill sought to create ‘small and simple credit societies for small and simple folk with simple needs and requiring small sums only’. He added that ‘co-operation must be built up from the bottom, and not from the top’. Plunkett, in his foreword to Eleanor Hough’s The Cooperative Movement in India (1932), commented that what India had was not a movement, but a policy. It was ‘created by ‘resolutions of the Central Government’ unlike Europe.
•Matthai wrote in 1925 that the challenge was to loosen government grip on cooperation over the years. But, government control has only increased, violating a core cooperative principle of political neutrality. This reflects a collective failure of the political class.
•After Independence, cooperative institutions became an instrument of planning and state action. Not surprisingly, the most successful Indian cooperatives such as the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF)/Amul, where Matthai’s nephew, Verghese Kurien, became a Raiffeisen, Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) and Krishak Bharati Cooperative Limited (KRIBHCO), are outside government control. Globally, seven of the top 10 cooperatives by asset size are from the financial sector. The Indian financial sector is nowhere in the picture going by asset size. A few make it in the top 300 by turnover/GDP per capita, aided by a low denominator.
•When a cooperative bank scales up, maintaining its cooperativeness is a challenge. Cooperatives have also become avenues for regulatory arbitrage, circumventing lending and anti-money laundering regulations. The committees which examined cooperative banking suffered from the top-down quality that Plunkett and others frowned upon. Recent initiatives such as an umbrella organisation for urban cooperatives and a new Ministry of Cooperation at the Centre threaten to further this approach in the absence of safeguards.
A check on RCS
•First, the powers of the RCS need to be scaled back. A British Indian innovation, it failed to stick to its original role of a facilitator: a friend, philosopher, and guide to cooperative societies. In almost all States, the RCS has become an instrument of inspection and domination, one which imposes uniform by-laws, and amends them when individual societies do not fall in line.
•Early pieces of legislation gave wide powers to the RCS as the laws were in an experimental stage. Moreover, the laws were simple and elastic so that they could cater to a region extending from present-day Pakistan to Myanmar. The RCS was empowered to grant exemptions considering local conditions. But, the position continued even after the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms placed cooperation under the provinces in 1919. The RCS continued to hold sway after Independence. Some States even provide for across-the-board takeover of cooperative boards. There is a need to transfer work from the RCS to cooperative federations — as in Singapore.
•Second, the rural-urban dichotomy in the regulatory treatment of cooperatives is specious and outdated. It perpetuates age-old divisions based on the nature of operations and population size. Such differences are immaterial when regulation is to be based on the cooperative nature of organisations.
•Third, the regulation and the supervision of cooperative banks should move to a new body from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for urban banks and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for rural banks. The arguments for combining supervisory powers with the RBI do not hold good for cooperative institutions. Moreover, it will ensure a fresh look at the regulation of these institutions to which stringent regulations like that of the Basel Committee are not designed to apply. As for NABARD, the burden of inspecting rural cooperatives (and regional rural banks) is a distraction from its core mandate, apart from being a drain on resources.
The Netherlands experience
•Fourth, lessons from the Netherlands, where cooperative banks owe their success to a segmented market, are pertinent. In India, adopting a multi-agency approach, especially after bank nationalisation, has affected the efficiency of both commercial and cooperative banks. Commercial bank-cooperative sector linkages at various levels could alternatively provide better synergies.
•Venkatappaiah’s words still ring true. So do the words of Nicholson, nearly 13 decades after his report: “Find Raiffeisen.”
📰 The Omicron response is not making sense
The onus is on countries in the global south to show leadership and let rationality and science determine the course
•We noticed that towards the end of November 2021, when a new SARS-CoV-2 variant, B.1.1.529, was designated as a variant of concern (VOC) and named Omicron, by the World Health Organization, the response of many countries had an uncanny similarity to the initial pandemic response around February-March 2020. The flights to the countries which had reported the new variant were unilaterally halted. A few countries jumped into action to either expand or start COVID-19 booster dose vaccination for their population. The virus was often referred to as the South African and Botswana variant.
An irrational retreat
•It appeared as if the world had barely learnt anything, while the reality is that the world of December 2021 is very different from that of March 2020. Back then, SARS-CoV-2 was a new virus and everything was unknown. In contrast, Omicron is just another variant of a virus we have known for nearly two years. Back then, nearly everyone was susceptible and now, with natural infection and/or vaccination, the pool of susceptible population has come down.
•Currently, a little more than half of the world’s population has received at least one shot. Also, there is reasonable testing and genome sequencing capacity, including the availability of some new drugs with greater evidence of effectiveness, which are widely used.
•All of this should have brought some nuance and granularity in the response. The scientific developments should have assured all that the response ought to be calmer, composed and evidence-informed. However, that seems to be missing, mostly if not always and all throughout. It is not making enough sense.
•The South Africans, instead of being applauded for the work of their medical doctors, researchers and scientists in the identification and the reporting of the new variant in real time, have ended up as a nation that has been punished with a travel ban, which had even threatened essential COVID-19 lab supplies. Contrast this with the Netherlands, which had detected Omicron earlier than South Africa and did not report it.
Excessive reaction and why
•It is true that Omicron has many mutations and some of those in the spike protein may have an impact on transmissibility, immune escape and sub-optimal response to the treatments. Clearly, this is enough to designate it as VOC, as it was. However, the response which followed should have been measured, evidence-based, derived from the experience earned in previous months and commensurate with the knowledge and understanding. However, it definitely has been excessive, in most cases if not all.
•The problem is not solely with governments. A few researchers and scientists, bereft of the ground reality in South Africa and often not in touch with anyone at ground zero, must also take some of the blame for the superlatives and hyperbole, which have been used to describe the variant.
•It will not be an exaggeration to say that some of the so-called ‘experts’ on social media and prime time television behave on what can be called the ‘borderline of public health malpractice’; with most of their information from sources on the Internet, yet always speaking as if they have the definitive and final words; and as if that is the only true science — which might be an unfortunate reality of the social media era.
•Then, there are the television debates where invited guests — often the influential voices though not necessarily experts on the subject — conveniently take a position which echoes popular sentiment, and where the sense of rationality is drowned out. The impact of such misinformation is widely known to the people of India, where unsubstantiated claims that ‘children would be affected in the third wave of COVID-19’ could not be dispelled for long, and continue to affect learning of children where parents are still wary of sending children for in-person schooling.
From the ground
•Both countries from where we writers belong, have responded to the emergence of Omicron largely with balanced, evidence-informed and measured responses, with occasional exceptions such as a demand from a few Chief Ministers in Indian States to ban all international flights. The last part raises serious doubts about their advisers on the COVID-19 pandemic as well as how there is a continuous need for science, and not merely political wisdom, to guide the pandemic response.
•With the emergence of new variants, the next natural step has to be that countries should become more alert about the need for tackling vaccine inequities; in reality, a few high income countries have rather started looking inwards and focusing on administering boosters. Another reality is that many ‘experts’ seem to have taken a rigid stand on how the new variant is more transmissible, has immune escape, and has a high probability of re-infections.
•Thereafter, as an example, even when the ground report from South Africa indicates that most cases are mild, some experts seem to be unwilling to budge from their position.
•Similarly, the point that a majority of cases were detected in the travelling vaccinated individual is being argued as evidence of immune escape or re-infections, while missing the point of confounding or the ascertain bias, as international travellers are required to be mandatorily vaccinated and tested. Therefore, it is not enough to argue that these cases are being reported more commonly amongst the vaccinated individuals, thus having higher vaccine breakthrough infections than the previous variants.
•Most importantly, the role of current COVID-19 vaccines in preventing infections is limited. Therefore, as the global pool of vaccinated individuals is increasing, the absolute number of infections in this subgroup is likely to rise proportionately, especially when the practice of mask wearing is anything but universal and is going down.
The ‘experts’
•The world seems to be divided into two groups of ‘experts’. One which is in a feverish rush and in competition to arrive at a certain conclusion before anyone else. Here there is a sub-tribe which argues that even though it may take many weeks or months before anything can be conclusively known, ‘let us assume that everything is worse with the variant’. This is not the right approach. However, this gets the first group more public attention than the second group which is talking about rationality and evidence-guided response. The approach of this group (the second group) is to look at the entire set of cumulative evidence and not the isolated one which best suits the argument one wishes to make.
•One needs to remember that the impact of the Omicron variant, no matter what new characteristics it has, will be dependent upon the context and the settings. A highly transmissible variant in a well-vaccinated population is unlikely to change scenarios, while it might pose a real threat to populations with low vaccination uptake. An immune escape alone may have limited relevance if not accompanied by high transmission and severity. Re-infection or breakthrough infections are common with all vaccines and all variants. Therefore, the solution is not a booster dose (which in the case of most vaccines is not helpful in reducing the transmission); the approach must be to increase coverage with the first two shots of vaccines and focus on improving adherence to COVID-19 appropriate behaviours.
Lost voices
•However, political leaders may resort to doing the easiest thing which echoes the sentiments of the people. The flight restrictions and the booster shots are reflections of that challenge. It is here where the voice of technical advisers, independent experts providing data on COVID-19 and the epidemiologists who are trained to make inferences based on limited information should be heard more frequently.
•The rich countries have mostly disappointed the rest of the world in terms of global solidarity in the pandemic response, which includes vaccine inequity. There seems to be no end in sight to this tragic tale. Now, the onus is on countries such as India, South Africa and many others in the global south to show leadership, and let rationality and science determine the course of the pandemic response. Along with this, it is time for a dynamic pandemic response and not that of a worst case scenario. All of this is very much doable.
📰 The need to reopen anganwadis
India must invest robustly in the world’s largest social programme on early childhood services
•Being closed since the April 2020-lockdown, anganwadis are slowly reopening. Those in Karnataka, Bihar and Tamil Nadu are opening or considering opening shortly. As part of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), anganwadis play a crucial role in supporting households, particularly from low-income families, by providing childcare, health and nutrition, education, supplementary nutrition, immunisation, health check-up and referral services. The largest in the world, ICDS covers about 88 million children aged 0-6 years in India. Their closure significantly impacted service delivery and weakened an important social safety net.
Source of crucial support
•Surveys by IDinsight across five States in November 2018 and November 2019 found that anganwadi workers were a primary source of nutrition information for families. Even as anganwadis resumed services, the closure has impacted their ability to serve as childcare centres. According to National Family Health Service (NFHS)-5 data, in 2019-20, less than 15% of five-year-olds attended any pre-primary school at all. A recent study estimates that the time women spend on unpaid work may have increased by 30% during the pandemic. In our COVID-19 rural household surveys across eight States, 58% of women cited home-schooling as the biggest contributor to increase in unpaid work. Sending younger children to anganwadis will free up women’s time, including for economic activities. Early childhood, the period from birth to five years of age, is a crucial developmental window. As platforms for early childhood education and nutrition support, anganwadis can play an important role for children to achieve their potential. The
National Education Policy, 2020, places anganwadis at the centre of the push to universalise access to early childhood care and education (ECCE). Last week, the government proposed a phased rollout of ECCE programme across all anganwadis, covering one-fifth each year, starting from 2021-22.
•Even as we acknowledge their heroic work and push for urgent reopening, we need to offer solutions to their myriad challenges. Despite being the primary information-source on nutrition, anganwadi workers can lack key knowledge – as found by studies from Delhi and Bihar. Surveys we conducted in 2018-19 found that among mothers listed with anganwadi workers, knowledge about key health behaviour such as complementary feeding and handwashing was low, at 54% and 49%. Anganwadi workers often do not have the support or training to provide ECCE. Administrative responsibilities take up significant time, and core services like pre-school education are deprioritised. A typical worker spends an estimated 10% of their time — 28 minutes per day — on pre-school education, compared to the recommended daily 120 minutes. Anganwadis often lack adequate infrastructure. NITI Aayog found that only 59% of anganwadis had adequate seating for children and workers, and more than half were unhygienic. These issues worsen in an urban context, with the utilisation of early childcare services at anganwadis at only 28%, compared to 42% for rural areas, according to NFHS-4 data.
Deepening impact
•As anganwadis reopen, we must prioritise interventions with a demonstrated history of success, and evaluate new ones. Studies in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh (and globally) have found that home visits, where volunteers work with children and caregivers, significantly improved cognition, language, motor development and nutritional intake while also reducing stunting. Recent initiatives around home-based newborn and young child care are promising, but they need to extend beyond the first few months of a child’s life, with seamless coordination with anganwadi workers.
•Many States will have to improve career incentives and remuneration for anganwadi workers. One way to ensure they have more time is to hire additional workers at anganwadis. A recent study in Tamil Nadu found that an additional worker devoted to pre-school education led to cost effective gains in both learning and nutrition.
•Policymakers have tried linking anganwadis and primary schools to strengthen convergence, as well as expanding the duration of daycare at anganwadis. Reaching out to women during pregnancy can increase the likelihood that their children use ICDS services – as tried in Tamil Nadu. In order to boost coverage as they reopen, large scale enrolment drives, that worked in Gujarat, may help mobilise eligible children.
•As the world’s largest provider of early childhood services, anganwadis perform a crucial role in contributing to life outcomes of children across India. To improve these outcomes, we need to invest more significantly in anganwadis, and roll out proven innovative interventions.
