Ms. Digvijay will present his APS as per the detail below:
Date: Monday, 30th September 2024
Time: 0900 - 1030 hrs.
Venue: C-TARA Conference Room No.1
Title: Interdepartmental Convergence for Tackling Malnutrition: Case of ICDS and UDD in Maharashtra.
Guide: Prof Satish Agnihotri; Co-Guide: Prof Arnab Jana
RPC Members: Prof Amit Arora, Prof Souvik Bannerjee, Prof Sarthak Gaurav
Abstract: India's status of Child and Maternal nutrition is the poorest in the world. The nation's flagship program of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) under the Department of Women and Child Development is the biggest of its kind. Eliminating malnutrition is an important objective of the ICDS program. For an urbanized state like Maharashtra, the challenge of urban malnutrition is as important as that of rural undernutrition. The emerging evidence has shown the challenge of the simultaneous existence of multiple forms of malnutrition in urban areas. The expansion of ICDS into urban areas came much later than that of rural ICDS. As given by UNICEF's framework, child malnutrition is an outcome of multiple factors classified into immediate, underlying, and basic levels. The study of existing government policies and programs associated with these factors becomes necessary to understand the issue of governance for tackling malnutrition as a whole. Thus, the interplay between various administrative structures of different departments involved in managing these factors, that is 'convergence' between these departments, becomes an important aspect of study. Given the independent nature of urban local bodies, for managing urban malnutrition, the convergence between the Urban Development Department and ICDS becomes an essential step.
Building on the literature review and research questions identified in the previous annual progress seminar, this seminar focuses on the challenges in building convergence between ICDS and urban local bodies of Maharashtra. In my previous research, I worked on addressing administrative challenges in urban ICDS in Maharashtra. My efforts led to three government resolutions. Now, I'm studying the implementation and impact of these resolutions. I'm also comparing urban and rural ICDS programs. To do this, I'm using various data sources and analyzing the data value chain. I'm particularly interested in understanding the coverage of urban ICDS and analyzing AWC locations. My goal is to provide insights into the effectiveness of policy interventions and the comparative performance of urban and rural ICDS.