Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) is India’s response to the challenge of breaking a vicious cycle of malnutrition, impaired development, morbidity and mortality in young children. It responds to the inter-related needs of children below six years, pregnant women, lactating mothers and adolescent girls in a comprehensive manner. The performance audit of implementation of this scheme in Bihar for the period 2011-12 to 2015-16 revealed following main findings:

1. Social Welfare Department, Government of Bihar (SWD) did not prescribe benchmarks for identification of prevalence of underweight children, anemia in case of pregnant/lactating women and Infant Mortality Rate and Maternal Mortality Rate in Bihar. Therefore, the output of implementation of ICDS in the State could not be gauged.
2. Hon’ble Supreme court (SC) directed that each habitation should have a functional Anganwadi centre and ICDS should be extended to all children upto the age of six years and all pregnant and lactating mothers. Despitethe orders, ICDS scheme was extended to only 44 to 46 per cent of eligible children, 55 to 58 per cent of eligible pregnant/lactating mothers and 10 to 20 per cent of adolescent girls as SWD failed to furnish specific requirement of AWCs in the State to Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India (MoWCD).
3. Perspective plan for the mission period was not prepared, whereas Annual Plans were prepared at State level without any inputs from Districts/Projects offices/Anganwadi Centers. The Department did not maintain the data on malnourished children. As a result, existing gaps prevailing in programme implementation such as prevalence of underweight/malnourished children, number of children out of preschool education, cases of anemia etc. were not assessed in any of the Annual Plans.
4. The Department could not spend the released funds fully in any of the years from 2011 to 2016 due to delayed release of funds by ICDS Directorate. Consequently, Government of India (GoI) did not release its subsequent share during fourth quarter of 2013-14 and 2015-16 under ICDS (General). Besides, Directorate had submitted incorrect Statement of Expenditure and Utilisation Certificates to GoI resulting in reporting of Rs14.50 crore as expenditure though the amount remained in the bank account.
5. There were only 84,098 Rural Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) against 1,12,272 Panchayat Wards in 503 rural project offices of Bihar leaving 28,174 (25 per cent) Wards in rural areas without any AWCs. Further, 21,366 AWCs and 1675 mini AWCs sanctioned by GoI in November 2014 were not operationalised as on March 2016 as SWD had not identified the population belonging to Schedule Caste (SC)/Schedule Tribes (ST)/Minorities which was a pre-requisite for opening the AWCs.
6. Out of functional 86,752 AWCs in the State, only 24,515 AWCs (28 per cent) were running in Government buildings while remaining 62,237 AWCs were running from either rented houses or from places like Panchayat office, community hall, open places etc. The test-checked 585 AWCs lacked facilities like toilet, drinking water, indoor/outdoor activities, sufficient utensils for preparation and serving of food. Despite availability of funds for construction and upgradation of AWC buildings, the Department did not finalise the budget head for drawals of funds till 2014-15. Therefore released funds could not be drawn from treasury. As a result of delayed finalisation of budget head, the Department could not utilise the funds released by GoI during 2013-15 for construction of 2,915 AWCs and upgradation of 4,405 AWCs.
7. Supplementary Nutrition Programme was not provided for targeted 300 days in any of the 585 test-checked AWCs. The prescribed checks to ensure specified standards and quality/ nutrition value of supplementary nutrition were not carried out by Food and Nutrition Board in the State. Besides, hygiene and safety could not be ensured as kitchen and safe water facility was available in only 29,495 (34 per cent) and 29,643 (34 per cent) of AWCs respectively out of functional 86,752 AWCs. Wheat Based Nutrition Programme (WBNP) to ensure the availability of foodgrains at cheaper rates was not implemented in all AWCs of the State. Medicine kits/Preschool kits were not available in any of the test-checked AWCs. Data on Immunisation was not maintained at any level in ICDS. Severely malnourished children were not referred to PHC/Hospital.
8. Government of Bihar did not constitute State Mission Steering Group and State Empowered Programme Committee for monitoring ICDS. Bihar Integrated Child Development Society was constituted for overseeing child development and nutrition system in December 2015 only. However, the Governing body for the Society is yet to be constituted (August 2016). As meetings of the monitoring committees in the State and in eight test-checked districts were not convened so far (August 2016), the monitoring of the scheme was inadequate.