Anganwadi worker Delphine D’Souza Perampalli Receives National Award

Anganwadi worker Delphine D’Souza Perampalli Receives National Award

Udupi/ New Delhi: Two anganwadi workers from Karnataka, Delphine D’Souza from Perampalli of Udupi district and Sumithramma of Chitradurga received the National Level Awards for anganwadi workers recognizing their exemplary voluntary service in the field of child development and related areas under the ICDS Scheme, at New Delhi on August 31.

The Minister of Women & Child Development, Maneka Sanjay Gandhi gave away the National Level Awards to anganwadi workers in recognizination to their exemplary voluntary service in the field of child development and related areas under the ICDS Scheme. The Awards for the year 2016-17 were given to 51 awardees on September 1. These awards are given annually.

Speaking on the occasion, Maneka Sanjay Gandhi congratulated the awardees and urged them to keep up their dedication to the cause of child development, community mobilization and awareness generation while delivering the ICDS Services. The functionary’s anganwadi workers and anganwadi helpers play a pivotal role in child development since the responsibility of taking care of small children has been given to these frontline workers across the country under the ICDS, the Minister explained.

Maneka Sanjay Gandhi said that till now, the role of anganwadi workers revolved around mainly distribution and provision of food to children and lactating mothers. However, the Government is now shifting the emphasis to covert anganwadis into centres of pre-school education. As a result, a massive exercise is being launched to train the anganwadi workers to become pre-school teachers, the WCD Minister disclosed. There are currently about 27 lakh anganwadi workers and helpers at the 14 lakh anganwadi centres across the country.

Earlier addressing the anganwadi workers, Minister of State for Women & Child Development, Krishna Raj said that the anganwadis can contribute to the Swacch Bharat Mission in a big way. This can be done by connecting nutrition to cleanliness i.e. providing nutrition to children and lactating mothers in a clean environment. She urged the awardees to become an example for other functionaries and to motivate them to deliver better quality ICDS Services.

WCD Secretary, Rakesh Srivastav, in his welcome address, said that the WCD Ministry is making all out efforts to improve anganwadi services. Some of the recent initiatives taken up in this regard include pan-India expansion of Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, electronic transfer of honorarium of anganwadi workers, guidelines for ECCE, food fortification, e-learning portal of WCD Ministry among many others.

The Award at the National Level comprises a cash prize of Rs.25,000/- and a citation. State Level Award comprises a cash prize of Rs. 5,000/- and a citation. As per guidelines, National Level Awards to AWWs are given to the awardees nominated by States/UTs out of the State/UT level awardees. The number of nominations of AWWs at National Level depends on the size of the State/UT and operational ICDS Projects. The scheme for awarding anganwadi workers at the National and State levels was formulated in the year 2000-01.

Delphine D’Souza has been serving as an Anganwadi worker of Perampalli 2 ward near Karamballi since 28 years.

Speaking to Mangalorean.com Delphine D’Souza said that I am very happy to receive this award. With the help of the department and locals I have succeeded to make our Anganwadi as a model for the state. I have great satisfaction in my work, she said.