Social welfare dept to fill 7,783 vacancies in anganwadi centres across TN

CHENNAI: The Social Welfare and Women Empowerment Department will be filling up 7,783 vacancies in anganwadi centres across Tamil Nadu. The department, under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), will be filling the vacancies through direct recruitment of anganwadi workers, mini anganwadi workers and helpers.

Following a proposal from the director and mission director of ICDS, the government has given its permission to fill the vacant posts in anganwadi centres that have more than 21 children attending pre-school education.

"The person appointed will be given a consolidated pay for one year and will be brought into special time scale pay from the second year onwards," stated the notification from the department.

And, the appointments to these posts will be done by the respective district programme officer, ICDS.

However, for the posts of anganwadi workers and mini anganwadi workers, only female candidates who have passed class 12 can apply. For anganwadi helper post, female candidates with class 10 pass certificates can apply, the department noted.

The eligibility criteria for anganwadi worker/mini anganwadi worker demand applicants should be aged between 25 and 35 years; however, an age relaxation of five years (up to 40 years) have been given to widows, destitute women, and those belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST).

The upper age limit of three years (37 years) has been relaxed for differently abled applicants for the anganwadi worker post.

Subsequently, for anganwadi helper post, applicants between 20 and 40 years can apply, with relaxation of 45 years for widows and destitute women and 37 years for differently abled candidates.

Commenting on the announcement, S Devimani, state treasurer of TN Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Association, said, "We welcome the government’s move to fill the vacancies in these centres. However, filling over 7,000 openings is a minute proportion compared to large-scale vacancies of over 20,000 across the state."

Also, Devimani urged the government for regularisation, an announcement anganwadi workers had been anticipating in the budget.

The ICDS scheme was implemented with an aim to improve nutrition, health and education status of children between 6 months and 6 years of age and women. The scheme also initiates programmes for pregnant women and nursing mothers by providing them with supplementary nutrition, pre-school education, immunisation, health check-ups and other referral services. As part of this, the department has been operating anganwadi centres in the state, in which these workers are employed.