Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), a Central Government-sponsored social welfare scheme, has introduced mobile anganwadis here to provide nutritional support to the children of construction workers.
The first of these mobile anganwadis began functioning on Wednesday.
The city is among the five chosen in the State by the Central Government for this project.
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The others are Chennai, Thiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Tirupur, official sources told
This initiative followed the results a study that found the nutritional status of the children of construction workers, who are mostly migrants from States such as Bihar, to be exceedingly poor and alarming.
A survey was taken up in Coimbatore a few months ago to identify construction sites. Following this, a mobile anganwadi has been positioned at Anna Nagar near Saravanampatti. It would cater to the children of construction workers at Keeranatham and Anna Nagar in Sircarsamakulam Block.
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District Collector Archana Patnaick visit the mobile van on Wednesday, its first day of operation, and interacted with the children.
Nutritional food would be cooked in the van and would be served to the children of construction workers in these two places. So far, a total of 30 children have been identified, sources said.
The ICDS operated as many as 1,697 anganwadis in the district, which provided nutritious food to the pregnant women and children from below six years besides conducting immunisation, health check-ups and referral services.