EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 106 of 120

Correct — A, (a) 0 - 6 years. The Integrated Child Development Services scheme defines its child beneficiaries as children below six years of age, that is, the whole span from birth to the sixth birthday, and it has done so since the scheme was launched on 2 October 1975. The reason the band runs to six and not further is that ICDS was designed around the years before formal schooling begins. Its package of six services is delivered at the anganwadi centre and is aimed squarely at the pre-school child: supplementary nutrition, pre-school non-formal education, nutrition and health education, immunisation, health check-up and referral services. Three of those six are delivered in convergence with the health system, so the scheme is jointly the business of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which owns it, and the health machinery that runs the immunisation and check-up components. It matters that the stem asks only about children. The scheme's beneficiary list is wider than that: pregnant women and lactating mothers are also covered, and adolescent girls have been covered under associated components at various times. The question narrows the ask to the child cohort, and among the four bands offered only 0 to 6 years covers it. Inside that band ICDS does treat two age groups differently, which is why the wrong options are the shape they are. Children under three are generally reached through take-home rations given to the mother, since they are too young to attend the centre for a meal, while children of three to six attend the anganwadi for a hot cooked meal and for pre-school education. Those are two modes of delivery within one beneficiary group, not two separate schemes, and the question asks for the beneficiary group. The scheme itself now sits inside a restructured umbrella. From 2021-22 the Government grouped its women-and-child programmes into Mission Poshan 2.0, Mission Vatsalya and Mission Shakti, with ICDS and the supplementary nutrition programme carried into the Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 component. The delivery unit and the beneficiary definition were not changed by that reorganisation: it is still the anganwadi centre, and it is still children below six.

• (b)0 - 3 years — This is one half of the ICDS child cohort rather than the whole of it, and it is a real operational category, which is what makes it the strongest wrong option. Children under three are served through take-home rations handed to the mother, because an infant or toddler cannot come to the centre to eat, and much of the growth-monitoring effort is concentrated on them since the first thousand days after conception are when stunting is largely determined. But the scheme does not stop at three, and a question asking for the beneficiary age group is asking for the whole band. Choosing this option means confusing a delivery mode with the coverage of the scheme.
• (c)3 - 6 years — This is the other half of the same cohort, the group that actually attends the anganwadi centre for a hot cooked meal and for pre-school non-formal education. Because that is the most visible face of an anganwadi, a candidate who pictures the centre rather than the scheme document can land here. The National Education Policy 2020 has also increased attention on this band by placing the three-to-six years inside the foundational stage of schooling, which reinforces the impression that it is a category on its own. It is still only part of the ICDS beneficiary group, and the scheme's own definition begins at birth.
• (d)6 - 15 years — This band belongs to a different programme altogether. School-age children are covered by the mid-day meal scheme, now called PM POSHAN, which provides a cooked meal to children in classes I to VIII in government and government-aided schools, roughly the six-to-fourteen age group that matches the Right to Education Act's guarantee of free and compulsory education. ICDS begins where the school system has not yet started and hands over at six. The option is designed to catch a candidate who remembers that the Government runs a large child nutrition programme but has not separated the pre-school scheme from the school one.

The Integrated Child Development Services scheme, launched on 2 October 1975, is India's principal programme for early childhood care and development and one of the largest such programmes anywhere. It is a centrally sponsored scheme of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, implemented by the States and Union Territories, and its delivery unit is the anganwadi centre staffed by an anganwadi worker and a helper. Its beneficiaries are children below six years of age together with pregnant women and lactating mothers, and it delivers a package of six services: supplementary nutrition, pre-school non-formal education, nutrition and health education, immunisation, health check-up and referral services. The last three are provided through the public health system, which makes ICDS a standing example of convergence between two ministries around a single beneficiary. The word 'integrated' in the name is the point of the design: the scheme's premise is that nutrition, health and early learning cannot be delivered separately to a small child because a deficiency in one undoes the gains in the others. Since 2021-22 the scheme has been carried into the Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 component of the Government's restructured umbrella of women-and-child programmes, alongside Mission Vatsalya for child protection and Mission Shakti for women's safety and empowerment.

Government schemes are one of the fixed subject blocks of the EO/AO General Ability Test, and the commonest way to test them in a single line is to ask for the eligibility or coverage parameter: the age band, the income ceiling, the nodal ministry or the year of launch. ICDS is a favourite because it is old, very large and frequently confused with the school feeding programme. The habit rewarded is to memorise for each major scheme a short fixed card of four items, namely the launching year, the nodal ministry, the beneficiary definition and the delivery unit, since almost every one-line question is drawn from one of those four.

• ICDS was launched on 2 October 1975 and is run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
• Its beneficiaries are children in the age group 0 to 6 years, along with pregnant women and lactating mothers.
• Its six services are supplementary nutrition, pre-school non-formal education, nutrition and health education, immunisation, health check-up and referral services.
• Immunisation, health check-up and referral services are delivered through the public health system.
• The delivery point is the anganwadi centre, staffed by an anganwadi worker and a helper.
• Children under three are usually reached through take-home rations; those aged three to six attend the centre for a hot cooked meal and pre-school education.
• Since 2021-22 ICDS has been carried into the Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 component of the restructured umbrella schemes.
• School-age children are covered by a separate programme, the mid-day meal scheme, now called PM POSHAN, for classes I to VIII.

• Confusing the ICDS age band with the school-age band covered by PM POSHAN.
• Treating the 0 to 3 and 3 to 6 delivery modes as though they were separate schemes with separate coverage.
• Attributing ICDS to the health ministry; the nodal ministry is Women and Child Development.
• Forgetting that pregnant women and lactating mothers are beneficiaries too, which matters when the stem does not restrict itself to children.
• Assuming the 2021-22 restructuring changed the beneficiary definition; it changed the budgetary architecture, not the age band.

Scheme questions in EO/AO papers come as a single-line coverage or ministry question, as here, or as a two-statement code item in which one statement names the nodal ministry and the other a design feature. A third shape is a matching item pairing four schemes with four ministries or four launch years. Build the four-item card for every major welfare scheme, and pay particular attention to schemes whose names or beneficiaries are close together, because that is precisely where the examiner sets the discrimination.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which one of the following ministries is the Integrated Child Development Services scheme implemented ?

  • (a)Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
  • (b)Ministry of Women and Child Development
  • (c)Ministry of Education
  • (d)Ministry of Rural Development

  Answer(b) Ministry of Women and Child Development

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is not among the six services delivered under the Integrated Child Development Services scheme ?

  • (a)Supplementary nutrition
  • (b)Pre-school non-formal education
  • (c)Free supply of textbooks to school children
  • (d)Referral services

  Answer(c) Free supply of textbooks to school children