Efficiency of Anganwadi Centres–A Study in Thiruvananthapuram District, Kerala

Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) is one of the world's largest and most unique programmes for early childhood care and development in India. This study aims to find out the efficiency of anganwadi centres in providing service to beneficiaries and the factors affecting the efficiency. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 200 anganwadi centres in Thiruvananthapuram district. An operational definition was developed for each six services in ICDS in order to measure efficiency of anganwadi centres. Beneficiaries like mothers of 3-6 years of children, pregnant women and lactating mothers enrolled in the anganwadi centres and anganwadi workers were the study participants. Proportion and chi-square test were used for data analysis. This study revealed that 5% of anganwadi centres were highly efficient, 63.5% are efficient and 31.5% are not efficient. The factors like educational status of anganwadi worker, job status, infrastructure facility, logistic facility, supervision, intersectoral coordination, support from health department and community participation showed a statistical significant association with efficiency of anganwadi centres. Infrastructure and logistic facility, supportive supervision and anganwadi worker’s educational status are the important factors needed for the improvement of service delivery of an anganwadi centre. In addition to this, coordinated work with health department, local self-government and of course the involvement of community in all phase of the health activities help in its service quality.