WCD Ministry launches app for maternity benefit programme

Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Friday announced that anganwadi centres across the country will serve as pre-schools, imparting education to children and looking at their health parameters. In a press conference, Gandhi also released training modules for anganwadi centres, guidelines for the maternity benefits programme, an e-module for Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) functionaries and activity books for children between the ages of three to six years.

Gandhi announced an overhaul of the maternity benefits programme — the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana — while launching an online application under which the benefits will be monitored by the Centre on a real-time basis. The scheme, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May this year, brought down the beneficiaries from the first two children to the firstborn.

"The nutritional parameters of the mother will be recorded by a state official on the app which will reflect immediately on the platform at the ministry headquarters. A state official will be responsible for greenlighting cash transfers periodically," a ministry official explained.

For anganwadi workers, Gandhi released two training modules — the Early Childhood Care and the Education Training Module — to provide the workers with an understanding of the curriculum and pedagogical approaches to stem malnutrition. A training module for the ICDS scheme, along with an e-training module was also released to ensure a better mechanism of the delivery of services. These modules were prepared by the ministry with help from UNICEF and Ambedkar University.

Apart from that, the ministry also released a child assessment card that helps track nutritional development of the child and a pre-school educational kit that includes a recommended list of play and learning materials.