Bhopal: It was more than a year back that the chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had made public his intention of completely overhauling the system of supply of supplementary nutritious food to the Anganwadis. He had announced that instead of Joint Venture companies, self-help groups (SHGs) will handle the job. However, his wish is unlikely to be fulfilled in the near future.
The woman and child development department has decided to put up yet another proposal in this regard before the cabinet for its clearance. If the proposal gets the cabinet nod, only a handful of SHGs would be able to get the contracts. And they would be selected by the department, instead of the earlier decision to award the contracts through open bidding. The chief minister has set the deadline of August 2018 for putting the new system in place. Till then, the joint venture companies to continue to make the supplies.
Sources say that the deadline is unlikely to be met and the JVs would continue to handle the work for at least a year more. There are more than 1.75 lakh SHGs in the state. Of them, some have joined hands to form producer companies through National Rural Livelihoods Project. They number around 200. It is now proposed that contracts would be awarded to only these companies. In view of the inordinate delay in executing the decision, the government has constituted a high power committee to resolve the issues.
The panel has met twice till now and another meeting is scheduled for the first week of January. The proposal to be submitted to the cabinet will be finalised at this meeting. The procedure for selecting the SHG producer companies is also undecided. The selected companies will have to put up their own production plants and the government will help them get loans from banks for the purpose.
Obviously, all this will take time. The chief minister is keen that the work should be handed over to the SHGs before the assembly polls. But that is easier said than done.
