District-level Bangaru Balyam committee meeting held

Ongole: Prakasam district collector A Thameem Ansariya has instructed officials to pay special attention to ensuring all school-age children attend school without discrimination.

Speaking at the district-level Bangaru Balyam Committee meeting at the collectorate in Ongole on Friday, the collector said that with schools closing this month for summer vacation, special attention must be paid to ensuring all children return after the break.

She directed officials to prevent dropouts and to specifically investigate reasons if any children fail to return to school. She asked them to fully equip schools and Anganwadi centres with necessary toilets, drinking water, and other basic facilities.

She highlighted that the 7th round of the Poshan Pakhwada programme will be conducted from the April 8th to the 25th, and instructed officials to focus on preventing nutritional deficiencies in children.

The Collector emphasized creating special awareness programmes for adolescent girls regarding health, nutrition, lifestyle, and personal hygiene. She suggested appointing special women teachers in schools to conduct awareness sessions on these topics. For school dropouts, she recommended identifying mentors to create awareness of these important issues as well. The collector directed that there should be no discrimination and that vaccinations should be promptly administered to children without Aadhaar cards. During the meeting, committee members honoured the collector for receiving the prestigious SKOCH Award for the ‘Bangaru Balyam’ initiative.

ICDS PD Hena Sujan, RDO Lakshmi Prasanna, DMHO Venkateswara Rao, District Social Welfare Officer Lakshmi Naidu, BC Welfare Officer Anjala, DCPO Dinesh Kumar, RIO Simon Victor, Bangaru Balyam Nodal Officer Venkateswara Rao, SARDS NGO representative R Sunil Kumar, and others

were present.