50 years of a nation-wide child development programme in India

This article reviews the current status of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, India; the largest Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) programme in the world, at 50 years of its existence. While there has been substantial advance of this scheme in terms of coverage and quality, its thrust has remained on providing supplementary nutrition and much more needs to be done to achieve truly universal and comprehensive ECCD services. The major issues besetting favourable outcomes relate to inadequate investments resulting in poor infrastructure, inadequately remunerated and capacitated ICDS workers and an overcentralisation resulting in a critical lack of community engagement and contextual adaptation. Social legislation is likely to be required to promote the rights of very young children through the reinvigoration of this scheme.