REPUBLIC OF INDIA

Government of the State of Bihar Integrated Child Development Services

In Collaboration with DFID supported SWASTH & Nutrition Monitoring Unit

Internship Scheme for International and Indian Students - 2013 India and Bihar
India is world's largest democracy with more than 1.2 billion people. It is today one of the fastest growing countries of the world, an emerging power. India is an ancient civilization, comprising of high levels of not only physical and spatial diversity but even striking levels of social, cultural, religious and linguistics diversity. Yet, India has a strong underlying unity and identity, which makes it stand out as a nation since time immemorial. Bihar is one of the 29 states of India, occupying an area of 98 thousand sq km (roughly equal to South Korea) amidst IndoGangatic plains of fertile agricultural land and perennial rivers. With the highest population density among Indian states (1102 person per sq. km.), it is the third most populous state in India with around 104 million people, which makes it larger than most of the countries of the world. Bihar is one of the poorest and least developed states of India in terms of most of the development indicators - per capita income, va rious heal t h and educational indicators, industrial and agricultural activities etc. However, for past 7 years, Bihar has been growing at a rapid rate under the new government, achieving a per annum growth rate of 14%, making it the fastest growing state in India. Bihar has a very rich cultural and historical heritage, spanning more than 3000 years, being the birth place of Lord Buddha and King Ashoka and home to arguably the first republic in the world.

State of Bihar within India

India's ICDS Program

Started by the Government of India in 1975, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program has been instrumental in improving the health and wellbeing of mothers and children under 6 by providing health and nutrition education, health services, supplementary food, and pre-school education. The ICDS programme in India is one of the largest welfare programmes in the world. It reaches more than 75 million children aged 0-6 years and 16 million pregnant and lactating mothers across India through a chain of more than 1.3 million Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) The broad objectives of the ICDS programme are: To improve the nutritional and health status of children in the age-group 0-6 years;

To achieve effective co-ordination of

policy and implementation amongst the various departments to promote child development; and To enhance the capability of the mother to look after the normal health and nutritional needs of the child through proper nutrition and health education. More information about Indias Ministry of Women & Child Development and ICDS Program can be accessed at its website www.wcd.nic.in

To lay the foundation for proper

psychological, physical and social development of the child;

To

reduce the incidence of mortality, morbidity, and malnutrition;

Range of Services Provided through AWCs

The concept of providing a package of services is based primarily on the consideration that the overall impact will be much larger if the different services develop in an integrated manner as the efficacy of a particular service depends upon the support it receives from related services. Two new programs targeted at adolescent girls and pregnant and lactating women respectively, called SABLA and IGMSY have been launched through ICDS platform in 2010. SABLA is targeted towards nutritional, health and life-skills training needs of adolescent girls (age 11 to 18) that are in school or out-ofschool due to various reasons. IGMSY is a conditional cash transfer scheme for pregnant and lactating women with an objective to improve their and the new borns health and immunization status. Both these schemes are presently being implemented in selected districts and are expected to be universalized during the current Five Year Plan.

The rapid universalization of ICDS program since 2008-09 has resulted into some programmatic, institutional and management gaps that needed redressal. These gaps and shortcomings have been subject matter of intense discussions at various forums. Accordingly, Government of India has recently decided to strengthen and restructure the ICDS scheme through a series of programmatic, management and institutional reforms, changes in norms, including putting ICDS in a Mission mode. This will be done in a phased manner during the first three year of Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17). AWC would be repositioned as a vibrant ECD centre to become the first village outpost for health, nutrition and early learning with a special focus on under-3s.

The ICDS Programme in Bihar

ICDS Directorate under Social Welfare Department (SWD) is mandated to run this largest welfare programme in the state targeted at children up to the age of 6 years, pregnant women and new mothers (and now adolescent girls too), providing essential nutrition, health and other related services to the target population. In Bihar, the ICDS programme today reaches out to more than 6.5 million children under six years of age, around one million adolescent girls and same number of expectant and nursing mothers. Of these, nearly 3 million children between the ages of three to six also participate in centre-based pre-school education activities.
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The targeted population is reached through around 91,000 Anganwadi Centres. Each AWC has a trained, community based Anganwadi Worker (AWW) and an equal number of Anganwadi Helpers (AWH). The AWCs are managed through ICDS programme in Bihar consisting of a hierarchy of 544 projects under 38 districts covering all community development blocks (administrative units) in the state of Bihar. In line with the national programme, the key services that the AWCs in Bihar are mandated to deliver are: Improving the nutritional and health status of children below the age of six years as well as pregnant & lactating women & adolescent girls.

Laying the foundation for the proper psychological, physical and social development of the child. Reducing the incidence of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition and school dropouts. Achieving effective coordination of policy and implementation among various departments especially health & education to promote child development. Enhancing the capability of the mother to look after the normal health and nutritional needs of the child, through proper health and nutrition education.

More information about ICDS Bihar can be accessed at www.icdsbih.gov.in

Organizational Design for Running of ICDS Programme

As per existing guidelines the ICDS programme is supposed to have one AWC for a population of 800-1000. Each AWC, as mentioned above is manned by one AWW and one AWH. Lady Supervisor (LS) oversees a cluster of 25-30 AWWs. At the field office level, the programme is managed by Child Development Project Officer (CDPO) in each project/block and a District Program Officer (DPO) at the District Level. The LSs report to the CDPOs, who in turn reports to the DPOs. The DPOs have matrix porting - they rereport to the District tive head of they also districts in India, and
My internship with ICDS at Patna gave me first-hand experience with one of the world's largest social welfare programs. I learned about the challenges faced by both urban and rural poor in Bihar, especially children and women, and how ICDS addresses these challenges. I used the skills I learned in my masters program to make a direct contribution to ICDS which will hopefully benefit the most vulnerable children and women in Bihar.

report to the Director of

ICDS/Secretary, SWD as head of line department who are based at the state headquarters - Patna. Thus, in total, around 180 thousand people are program and delivery of its services to the target Bihar At the State Level, a Director heads the ICDS Programme and is usually a senior career civil servant. The Social Welfare Department is headed by a Secretary who is also a senior career civil servant. involved in the implementation of ICDS various population in

Magistrate (DM) who is administra-

Andrew Bracken, (USA) University of Michigan, USA

Government of India has recently launched a comprehensive information, education and communication campaign to fight malnutrition. More information about this is available on Nutrition Resource Platforms website www.poshan.nic.in

Nutrition Monitoring Unit and DFID Funded SWASTH

Government of Bihar has recently launched Sector Wide Approach to Strengthening Health (SWASTH) program with DFID grant. SWASTHs goal is to improve the health and nutritional status of people in Bihar, particularly the poorest of the poor, and thereby accelerate the states progress towards the Development Goals. Strengthening the Millennium management plan includes improving focus on the under two children, capacity building of ICDS functionaries at all levels, establishing responsive MIS systems, improving monitoring conducting periodic evaluations; and use of innovative strategies to improve the functioning of AWCs.

systems and delivery of services of ICDS is an important aspect of SWASTH and this is being implemented through Nutrition Monitoring Unit (NMU) housed in Social Welfare Department. The

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Challenges Facing the ICDS Programme in Bihar

Given the scale and scope of the ICDS programme, it is not surprising that the programme faces a few critical challenges. Some of the key challenges faced by the programme in Bihar are :

Increasing the efficiency, coverage and impact of the programme Functional

convergence with other programmes impacting under-nutrition namely the Mid Day Meal Scheme, State Rural Health Mission and the Public Distribution System severely undernourished children

Achieving economies of scale especially for supplementary nutrition for Improving the quality and reliability of data for more effective targeting
and decision making

Streamlining processes for skill and knowledge transfer among frontline

ICDS workforce for more effective service delivery, etc .

The Internship Scheme

The ICDS Bihar Internship Scheme Through this scheme, the ICDS/ was for 2013. launched in 2012 and NMU expects to benefit from the students, interns whereas would the gain applications are now being accepted fresh insights and assistance of the internships during summer of young The first year of the selected

Eligibility and Target Group

The internship seeks students of different graduate program from leading universities of the world as well as India. Students who are pursuing their bachelors/masters/ doctoral degrees in the following areas of Development, Sociology, Public Social Public Policy, Work, Health,

internship has seen an enthusiastic valuable, real-world experience of participation community and from 4 student working on some of the most international challenging developmental issues substantially academic compliment and

and 12 Indian students from some faced by the world today which of the world and Indias best would institutions internship. were selected for their learning

specialization International Development, Economics, Public Rural Administration, Development, Business

provide them an edge to enter the

Administration,

The internship scheme has been productive workforce after the respective launched to generate ideas and completion of their research, find new and innovative academic programmes. solutions, and also to overcome The period of internship would be many of the challenges being faced between 4 to 12 weeks during May by ICDS program in general as its 2013 to August 2013. implementation particular. in Bihar in

Nutrition, etc. - would be better equipped for the internship. However, highly motivated and interested students from other streams are also welcome to apply. Foreign nationals would need to obtain the necessary visa clearances from the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
I got to interact with people from all walks of life especially slum people. It was moving, listening to their problems and satisfying to give the solution. It was truly a memorable experience.

Internship Report and Certificate

At the end of the internship programme, the interns will submit a report of around 25 A4 size pages outlining their experiences, learning and suggestions for improving the ICDS programme delivery and / or management
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mechanisms. The report must be written in either English or Hindi. On successful completion, interns would be given a certificate to this effect by the ICDS/NMU.

Taslima Islam, (Bangladesh) Pondicherry Central University

Structure of Internship
The selected candidates will report to the ICDS headquarter at the start of the internship and then would proceed to the concerned offices/ places where the internship has been offered to them. No travelling allowance will be paid for joining the place of internship allotted to the candidates either at the start of or after the completion of internship. The selected candidates have to make their own arrangement of lodging, boarding and transportation. The intern would be attached with ICDS/NMU headquarters and/or with various offices of CDPO or DPO all over Bihar. It is also expected that interns would be making various field visits in villages, rural areas and interiors of the state in the course of their internship to gather data and information, to have interaction with frontline workers as well as general people at large, to have a first-hand experience of working of AWCs, to observe and understand various structure, processes and procedures related to ICDS activities and service deliveries through AWCs. The selected interns would also be expected to interact with respective CDPOs and DPOs in their day to day functions, contribute to and suggest ways / means to increase the work efficiency in the respective offices with respect to the area of study or support. To facilitate the interns in the pursuit of their assignment, they would be provided with logistics support like working space etc. in the concerned state / district offices. However, the selected interns are expected to bring / use their own personal laptops / computers for use during the period of the internship.

Indicative Areas for Research/Internship

The areas of research and topics for the internship programme will be closely related to the intervention and programmatic areas within ICDS. Some tentative areas of research are 1. Enrolment and coverage of beneficiaries in ICDS, barriers to universalization. 2. ICDS coverage of the poorest and marginalized groups who is being excluded in limiting Supplementary Nutrition Program services and what criteria are being used. 3. Capacity building status and need across various levels of ICDS functionaries. 4. Evaluation and Study of an ongoing conditional cash transfer scheme (called IGMSY) for pregnant women in few districts of Bihar. 5. Studyin Implementation of SABLA scheme focused on their health and nutritional issues including their learning and training in life and vocational skills. 6. Working on recently initiated restructuring of ICDS and its conversion into Mission Mode, its programmatic and institutional reengineering and related issues, problems and processes. 7. Capacity building of CDPOs office, supervisors and AWWs, pre and post assessment on ease of recording and reporting at AWC 8. Reaching the unreached groups particularly pregnant women, nursing mothers and children less than 3 years old and working intensively with village council (Gram Panchayat) cluster to universalize the reach. 9. Study and research a village council (Gram Panchayat) and support focused Nutritional and Health Education (NHED) activities for few weeks. Analyse the response and suggest ways to strengthen the intervention 10 Few interns at ICDS/NMU Headquarter can study the various departments e.g. HRD, Training, Finance & Budget, MIS, Monitoring etc. -analyse flow of data and information, study the business-process from AWC upwards, suggest ways to utilize data at each level etc. In case of procurement and logistical processes analyse procedures, find out lacunae and gaps, study centralized vs. decentralized procedures and suggest ways to improve outputs. 11. Social Audit of AWC and its various services which are conducted by independent agencies including non profit organizations and community based group. 12. Study a new experiment where responsibility for managing Supplementary Nutrition Program is being given to Self Help Groups of Village level Organizations. The above list is only indicative and does not limit the possibilities and areas which interns could work and explore, research and gain exposure and experience into. In fact, new ideas and innovation would be welcome!
It was a privilege working with a department like ICDS, Bihar. I would have never believed that a government organization could be so open to young minds and their ideas. I admire their zeal to improvise and adapt. As an intern it was a total value addition and my work was heard and recognized with utmost good sense.

Nikhil Kumar, (India)

Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University

Students could also work on an undergoing evaluation study and monitoring interventions being carried out by IDinsight (a firm of Harvard University Graduates)

Many internship reports from 2012 Interns are available on the Publication/Report section of ICDS Bihar website, www.icdsbih.gov.in
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Financial Assistance
The financial assistance offered to the interns is meant to provide a modest incentive for participating in the internship programme and to meet some of their daily costs. It would not be covering all the expenses to be incurred during the course of internship, and therefore, selected inters are encouraged to search for external assistance/scholarships from different agencies/universities. All selected foreign national interns would be paid a consolidated sum of Rs. 25,000 (Indian Rupees Twenty Five Thousand only) per month as an honorarium. Further, this honorarium would be Rs. 8,000 (Indian Rupees Eight Thousand) per month for Indian students. Foreign national interns will be offered assistance, if required, in finding reasonable accommodation at the place of their internship. However, the cost of renting a house / guest house room / hotel room / paying guest accommodation would need to be borne by the concerned intern. Interns are expected to bear their own costs for travel from place of stay to the concerned office to which they are attached as well as course of their internship. for various field visits they would be making in

Procedure for Application and Selection

1. Interested students are required to send their internship@icdsbih.gov.in preferably by 31st March 2013. a) Bio-data b) A photograph c) A letter/email from the Head/Registrar of the Program/Department/Institution/ University declaring that the applicant is a bonafide student of the concerned institution d) Preferable period for internship between May to August 2013 3. Applicants are advised to apply early for an early decision. All selected interns would be intimated as soon as their selection is finalized and in all cases latest by the end of May 2013, through email only detailed bio-data by email to

2. The following information should be included while applying through email

In case of difficulty please contact Ms. Abha Prasad Assistant Director Integrated Child Development Services India Bhawan, Boring Canal Road Patna 800001, Bihar (India)
Tel. +91-612-2539707, Fax. +91-612-2535900 E-mail: director@icdsbih.gov.in Website : www.icdsbih.gov.in

Ms. Mahua Choudhury State Programme Manager Nutrition Monitoring Unit Apna Ghar, Bailey Road Patna 800023, Bihar (India)
Tel. +91-612-2546510, Fax. +91-612-2546511 E-mail: spm.cb.ssupsw@gmail.com