The Centre is committed to further strengthen the Integrated Child Development Services, ICDS, programme by allocating more resources. Women and Child Development minister, Krishna Tirath stated this in a meeting with Secretary of US Health and Human Services Ms Kathleen Sebelllius in Washington.

Highlighting the role of ICDS in fighting malnutrition, in the country, Ms Tirath said the programme has the potential to break the intergenerational cycle of under nutrition as well as address the multiple disadvantages faced by mothers and children.

She emphasized the contribution made by the scheme in providing a holistic package of services like supplementary nutrition, pre-school non-formal education, health education, immunization, health check-up and referral services.

She informed that the programme is specifically designed to reach the disadvantaged and low income groups in the country.

Ms Tirath stated that there are 1.4 million sanctioned ICDS centres in the country, and the programme was benefitting 78.4 million children and 17.8 million pregnant and lactating mothers.

Talking about the US-India bilateral co-operation, the minister informed that she will soon send a delegation to get first hand knowledge of the functioning of the Head Start programme in the US.

The programme is learnt to be a similar kind of community outreach programme like ICDS for early childhood care.