The enumeration of children below the age of five, numbering 45 lakhs in the State, for Aadhaar is likely to be completed in a few months, official sources said.
Even though the biometric features of the children are not being captured, photos are taken and they are linked with Aadhaar numbers of their parents. Children in this age group were not included in earlier efforts to issue Aadhaar cards. As part of the current drive, Aadhaar camps will be set up at schools to register these children. If parents are eager to register their wards before their turn comes at the school, they can approach the nearest anganwadi , officials explained.
The process, which began last year, has so far covered 60% of the children, who are attached to anganwadi centres or private nursery schools, says a senior official of the Social Welfare and Nutritious Meal Programme Department, the nodal agency. Other departments such as the State School Education Department, the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) are also involved in the exercise.
Under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), about 13.6 lakh children, falling in the group of two years to six years, were provided with supplementary nutrition through the anganwadi centres during 2016-17. Around 10.4 lakh children, aged between six months and two years, were also covered under the scheme last year.
The enumeration exercise, once completed, would throw light on the status of those children who dropped out of the angawadi centres. “At present, we do not have any quantifiable data about the number of children opting out of the anganawadi centres and attending the private schools,” the official said, adding that the Aadhaar database would be linked to the data on enrollment of children to schools.
Admitting that parents of the beneficiaries of the ICDS are suffering from an “image problem” about the scheme, the official explained that the dropout rate tends to go up once the children turn two. At this stage, the parents remove the children from the anganwadi centres and get them admitted to the private nursery schools.
To address this problem, pre-school education kits are being provided to the anganwadi centres, totalling around 50,000, so that emphasis is laid on physical, language, cognitive and socio-emotional aesthetic appreciation of the children. Colour uniforms are being provided free of cost on an experimental basis to around 3.74 lakh children in 10 districts including Villupuram, Ariyalur, Chennai, Tiruchi and Tirunelveli.
In addition, the government is taking various initiatives to improve school preparedness and health of the children. One of the measures is to provide milk of 150 ml to about 3,160 children in 100 anganwadi centres. The children fall under the age group of two to five years. The official adds that the impact of the initiatives is being studied.
