Institutional Capacity and ECCE Delivery under Mission Saksham Anganwadi: A Policy Perspective
Author: Prangya Jyoti Samal
Before a child reaches the age of six, nearly 85% of brain development has already taken place, making early childhood the most crucial phase of human development. This period lays the foundation of cognitive, emotional, and physical development, which further influence the educational and developmental factors (Rajya Sabha Secretariat, 2025). However, India’s current nutritional indicators present a very concerning picture. According to National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21), 35.5% of children under the age of five are stunted, 19.3% are wasted, and 32.1% are underweight. These figures highlight the urgent need for a robust, well-functioning early childhood care and education system that not only addresses nutritional and health needs but also focuses on early learning during the most formative years of a child’s life.
Case Study: Durga was born in 2014, Kitora village of Rajasthan to a young mother who was married off early. Lack of access to nutritious food along with low birth weight and frequent illness led Durga to continue to be stunted till she was three years old. The story took a turn when she joined the village Anganwadi and preschool. Regular nutrition at the Anganwadi and timely visit to a Malnutrition Treatment Centre, Durga's health steadily improved and within months her weight also doubled. The kid who once refused to eat, slept through most activities and barely interacted with any other children, began to play and learn along with her classmates. Durga's story is not one single picture, rather the reality of millions of children across India (Ahmad, 2019).
The Policy Landscape
Childhood is widely considered the most significant phase of human development, as evidenced above. Therefore, the Government of India has strengthened its early childhood care and education policies. The cornerstone of this vision is the Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0, which was introduced through the Union Budget for fiscal year 2021-2022. With its commencement, it integrated erstwhile Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Poshan Abhiyan (2018), and the Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG) into a unified framework. This mission represented a paradigm shift from addressing nutritional needs alone to promoting holistic child development, emphasizing Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) (Kapur et al., 2023).
Mission Saksham Anganwadi operates in a multi-tiered governance structure. It is designed in such a way that it ensures steady service delivery at the grassroots level and highlights the core of decentralized planning, where the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD) serves as the nodal agency at the central level to formulate and oversee the programs and policies. Additionally, the Central Empowerment Program Committee is a technical body which is responsible for state-wise annual program implementation plans and keeps close eyes on the monitoring progress for Mission Saksham Anganwadi.
The State Level Steering Committee chaired by the Chief Secretary ensures the implementation of policies and programs. Moving closer to the ground, the District Magistrate (DM) is the nodal authority of the district's nutrition and education outcomes. (Ministry of Women and Child Development, 2022). The DM chairs the District Nutrition Committee and mandatorily includes certified nutrition experts to monitor quality standards. The District Program Officer and THE Child Development Project Officer further manage the block-level operations and implementation.
At the Anganwadi centres, the Anganwadi workers (AWW), and helpers (AWH), are the frontline soldiers. Anganwadi workers are not just caregivers providing food; they are also preschool educators providing guidance and ensuring that the children are actually reaching their developmental milestones (Future of Youth Foundation, 2026).
Institutional Capacity Assessment
The "What": Infrastructure, Resources, and Institutional Capacity
Currently, India operates around 13.9 lakh Anganwadi centres. Through the creation of Saksham Anganwadis, over 1.03 lakh centres have already been upgraded with modern digital and hardware infrastructures (Future of Youth Foundation, 2026). These revamped Saksham Anganwadis are equipped with LED screens, audio-visual learning tools, and Wi-Fi connectivity to facilitate interactive, play-based learning. It also prioritises sustainability and a safe environment through the provision of piped water, RO filtration machines, separate toilets, solar power systems, and rainwater harvesting structures, ensuring a safe, hygienic, and eco-friendly learning space.
One of the remarkable features under this mission is ‘Building as a Learning Aid’ (BaLA), which utilizes the walls as pedagogical tools. Through BaLA paintings, the physical structures were transformed into interactive textbooks for picture-based learning. The government also focused on constructing 50,000 new pakka buildings, through a unique funding split between MGNREGS, the Finance Commission, and the Ministry of Women and Child Development (Singh, 2026)
However, infrastructure alone cannot ensure quality ECCE. The effectiveness of these upgraded centres ultimately depends on the capacity, skills, and institutional convergence of the stakeholders responsible for making the policy into meaningful learning experiences.
The "How": Governance, Training, and Inter-sectoral Convergence
The flagship capacity building drive under Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi has already trained over 10.25 lakh Anganwadi workers to provide them the skill set for play-based teaching. They have focused on professionalizing the workforce through the six-month certificate courses and one-year diplomas to workers’ status as well as the frontline workers are supported with the performance-based incentives and digital prompts, which are delivered through smartphones, fostering a sense of empowerment and professional pride among them (IMB, 2026)
India has developed a comprehensive research-backed national curriculum for the early years of childhood education, divided into various frameworks like:
Navchetna (from 0 to 3 years) focusing on providing structured guidance for early childhood stimulation during the critical first 1000 days.
Adharshila (from 3 to 6 years) focuses on a 48-week play-based curriculum, which also aligns with National Curriculum Framework for the Foundational Stage (NCF-FS) 2022 that promotes cognitive, social, and emotional growth through stories and creative activities.
Along with that, AWCs were provided with annual kits of Rs. 3,000 to develop DIY and indigenous toys, ensuring the learning remains contextually rooted and engaging. One of the revolutionised examples of digital excellence can be seen through POSHAN Tracker, which connects over 14.02 lakh AWCs and nearly 9 crore beneficiaries. This tracker provides a 360-degree view of activities which enables identification of malnutrition and ensures that critical nutrition and education services are being delivered with accuracy. This technology is inclusive as it is available in 24 languages to ensure that language is no barrier to governance at the grassroots level. Features like facial recognition systems also ensure that supplementary nutrition reaches the intended beneficiaries directly. Various state-level and local initiatives like Suposhit Gram Panchayat Abhiyan, Poshan Maah and Poshan Pakhwada create a healthy culture of competition and accountability, as well as encourage local stakeholders and volunteers to promote nutrition and early learning at the village level(Rajya Sabha Secretariat, 2025).
Further, to ensure that every child receives a holistic service, it moves beyond traditional bureaucratic documentation and demands incorporation of inter-sectoral convergence. Along with the role of the MWCD and the Ministry of Education, it requires convergence with the National Health Mission, bringing ASHA and ANM workers together to carry out field visits, sanitation and nutrition days, immunization, health check-ups, and early disability screening along with education and nutrition. By combining these sectors, the mission creates a supportive ecosystem where the child is not just a recipient of one single service, rather becomes a part of a coordinated national effort to ensure that every mind has the foundation to thrive (Future of Youth Foundation, 2026).
Institutional and Operational bottlenecks
One major institutional challenge for Mission Saksham Anganwadi is the professional identity crisis faced by Anganwadi workers (AWWs). They often catch themselves moving between the roles of a caregiver and an educator. Beyond providing quality early childhood care and education, their responsibilities extend to preschool teaching and many additional tasks: they are expected to perform up to 21 different duties, including election-related work, census and survey data collection, implementation of government schemes, and maintaining digital records via the Poshan Tracker (Singh, 2026). This excessive administrative burden leaves little scope for meaningful interaction with children and the delivery of play-based learning, and it has undermined their employment status, with workers often treated as honorary or voluntary rather than recognized professionals. Despite being burdened with myriads of responsibilities, compared to those of preschool educators, many Anganwadi workers receive a modest honorarium as low as Rs. 4,500 per month in some states, which is lower than the salaries of primary school teachers. This disparity undermines professional dignity and reflects limited institutional recognition of their role. Furthermore, the absence of structured career progression, regular promotions, and adequate financial incentives makes it difficult to attract and retain professional talent required for high-quality ECCE (Rawat, 2025).
Another persistent hurdle is the community perception gap regarding the role of Anganwadi centres. In many rural areas, parents see Anganwadi primarily as a ‘khichdi centre’- a place for supplementary nutrition and food distribution rather than a hub of learning. This creates a striking irony in India's early childhood landscape. While children from affluent families often attend private preschools that offer structured early-learning environments, children from economically disadvantaged households rely on Anganwadis, where parents may demand rote learning because they do not understand the science of play. This misunderstanding often pressures Anganwadi workers to prioritise memorisation over developmentally appropriate play-based pedagogy, depriving many children of age-appropriate learning experiences (Singh, 2026).
A major roadblock for Mission Saksham Anganwadi is poor physical infrastructure. Although the mission’s objective was to set up modern child-friendly centres, nearly 40–60% of AWCs continue to operate from rented premises, particularly in urban slums and remote rural areas. These rented spaces are often cramped and poorly ventilated, with multipurpose halls serving simultaneously as classrooms, kitchens, and storage for nutrition supplies. Such conditions compromise hygiene standards and leave little room for play, exploration, and interactive learning sessions. In some districts, evaluations have highlighted the absence of basic facilities such as safe drinking water, child-friendly toilets, and outdoor play equipment. When children learn in overcrowded spaces not designed for their developmental needs, the vision of providing quality ECCE remains difficult to realize (Akham, 2025).
Another emerging challenge is the gap between digital reform and on-the-ground realities. The introduction of Poshan Tracker, which aims to improve the monitoring and reduce paperwork, however has become a source of techno-stress. Due to technical glitches and administrative requirements, workers often maintain both digital and manual records, which leads to duplication of work (Devi & Yadav, 2025). In remote and tribal regions, poor internet connectivity and limited digital literacy further lead to delays in data uploads. As a result, technology designed to support service delivery often reduces time for meaningful engagement with children (Kapur et al., 2023).
Lastly, Mission Saksham Anganwadi is an integrated program covering nutrition, health, and preschool education, requiring collaboration between the Ministry of Women and Child Development and the Ministry of Education. . However, overlapping responsibilities create ambiguity regarding curriculum, implementation, and budget allocation, which leads to fragmented accountability. Consequently, institutional support for frontline workers remains weak, and the focus shifts from enhancing children’s learning experiences to merely ensuring administrative maintenance (Singh, 2026).
Way Ahead: Policy Recommendations
To make the mission more accessible and successful, several bottlenecks must be addressed.
1. Resolve the professional identity crisis among Anganwadi staff: re-title Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) as Anganwadi Teachers to rebuild professional pride and dignity; provide a minimum professional salary (instead of multiple honoraria) plus performance-based incentives; and create a dedicated HR and skills-enhancement module that enables promotion and career progression.
2. Upgrade AWC infrastructure: ensure clean drinking water, child-friendly toilets, reliable electricity, and outdoor play spaces; introduce modular classrooms and separate storage facilities so learning spaces are not used for food storage.
3. Strengthen coordination between MWCD and the Ministry of Education via joint planning and monitoring so food-distribution needs and children’s developmental outcomes are balanced.
4. Make digitalization worker-friendly through workshops, peer-led monitoring, and digital-literacy promotion to reduce techno-stress and the paperwork burden.
5. Promote community participation through Poshan Panchayats and ECCE days to enhance parental and stakeholder trust in Anganwadis as learning hubs.
Mission Saksham Anganwadi demonstrates a shift from a welfare-based approach to a developmental approach. As Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said, ‘Learning gives creativity; creativity leads to thinking; thinking provides knowledge; and knowledge makes you great.’ Thus, by nurturing learning from the earliest years through strong Anganwadi institutions, India can build healthier children and stronger communities for a more inclusive Viksit Bharat 2047.
References:
Ahmad, I. (2019, January 15). A new start to life for little Durga. UNICEF India. here
Akham, P. (2025). An analysis of the implementation of India's Anganwadi Services Scheme against UNICEF's programme guidance for early childhood development (Master's independent study, Thammasat University). Thammasat University e-Thesis Archive. here
Devi, R., & Yadav, R. S. (2025). Knowledge and impact of digitalization on Anganwadi workers' work load and well being. International Journal for Innovative Research in Multidisciplinary Field, 11(9). here
Future of India Foundation. (2026). Anganwadi Centre Institution notes. YouthPOWER. here
Kapur, A., Rana, T., & Shukla, R. (2023). Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0, 2023–24 (Budget Briefs, Vol. 15, Issue 6). Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research. here
Ministry of Women and Child Development. (2022). Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0: Scheme guidelines. Government of India. here
Rajya Sabha Secretariat. (2025, December 12). Synopsis of debates: Rajya Sabha, 269th session [PDF]. here
Rawat, P. (2025, March 28). Mission Saksham Anganwadi & Poshan 2.0: Advancing nutritional security and early childhood development. IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute. here
Singh, R. (2026, March 23). Redefining the Anganwadis into pre-schools in NEP 2020: Minimizing the policy vision and ground realities. DevInsights. here
