India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Programme

Abstract

Launched in October 1975, India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme is its largest national programme for promoting the health and development of mothers and their children. This chapter examines an aspect of the ICDS programme that has been neglected, namely who are its beneficiaries? Are they persons from deprived groups who, but for the programme, might not have received such services? Or are they persons from more privileged groups who have the resources to acquire them from other sources? In both cases, the ICDS programme adds value, but in the latter situation, it does so by displacing existing services. This evaluation of the ICDS programme is particularly important in the light of the Government of India’s view, as articulated in its Eleventh Five Year Plan, that growth is not perceived as “sufficiently inclusive for many groups, especially Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Minorities”. The chapter presents econometric estimates regarding the relative strength of the personal and household circumstances of persons in determining the likelihood of utilising ICDS. Lastly, the chapter suggests a trade-off between quality and utilisation by hypothesising that the poor quality of services leads upper-caste mothers to exit the ICDS market and seek these services elsewhere.