It looks like the decision of the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh to merge Anganwadi centres with the school education department has given an inspiration to the Telangana government headed by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
The TRS government has decided to shift the Anganwadi Centres being operated in rented buildings would be shifted and operated from the government primary school premises.
This was decided at a meeting held by state education minister Sabita Indra Reddy and women and child welfare minister Satyavathi Rathod with the officials of both the departments to discuss the joint operations of Anganwadi centres and government primary schools.
At present, out of the total 35,700 Anganwadi centres, 15,167 are already operating on primary school premises.
As many as 11,185 centres have their own buildings and another 12,174 were functioning in the buildings without rent, while 12,219 centres were running in rented buildings.
“The state government is planning to strengthen Anganwadi centres by shifting them to the government primary schools premises,” Satyavathi Rathod said.
Sources said the objective is to gradually merge the Anganwadi centres with the primary schools.
“We are contemplating extending pre-primary (nursery) education to the children from Anganwadi Centres, where they are being provided with nutritious food. From pre-primary, they will straightaway go the primary schools in the same premises,” the sources said.
In Andhra Pradesh, too, the Jagan government introduced the similar concept. He got the Anganwadi centres merged with the primary schools, absorb Anganwadi teachers into the school education department and then, providing English medium nursery education to the children of poor sections.
As the concept is doing well in AP, the Telangana government is planning to emulate the same model, sources added.