A STUDY ON CO-ORDINATION BETWEEN HEADQUARTERS AND FIELD LEVEL OF DELIVERY SYSTEM OF ICDS PROGRAMME

The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme is one of the flagship programmes of the Government of India and represents one of the world's largest and unique programmes for early childhood care and development. It is the foremost symbol of country's commitment to its children, pregnant women and nursing mothers, as a response to the challenge of providing pre-school non-formal education on one hand and breaking the vicious cycle of malnutrition, morbidity, reduced learning capacity and mortality on the other. The present study attempted to assess the co-ordination among employees of ICDS scheme at project level in Punjab. Responses were collected from 30 Anganwadi Workers comprising 10 AWWs from Barnala ICDS project, 10 AWWs from Sehna ICDS project and 10 AWWs from Mehal Kalan ICDS project on the basis of random sampling. The study revealed that the co-ordination among employees of ICDS scheme at project level were not satisfactory. The proper implementation of the social welfare scheme was impeded by many constraints such as lack of commitment of employees, lack of team work, lack of perform proper job responsibilities, etc. The government should issue necessary instructions to concerned employees of ICDS scheme at project level for increase their job performance in close collaboration and coordination manner.