Patna: Anganwadi centres will now be lined with poultry farms so that malnourished children and pregnant women can get eggs without any hiccups.

The directorate of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the animal husbandry department for the linkage. Right now, extremely malnourished children get 12 eggs per month at the ICDS centres, while eight eggs per month are given to malnourished children and pregnant ladies get seven eggs per month.

Initially, anganwadi centres in five districts would be linked with poultries, including inGopalganj, Siwan, and Saran.

ICDS monitoring officer Kavi Priya on Thursday said the decision was taken because anomalies were found out in the availability of eggs at ICDS centres. She was speaking at a roundtable discussion organised by the ICDS in collaboration with the health department and the NGO Care India on status of nutrition for children in Bihar.

The state programme officer of child health, Surendra Kumar, said the national iron plus initiative of the central government would be soon rolled out in the state under which iron syrups and tablets would be provided to schools for distribution among students.

"Under the programme, iron syrup would be provided to children under five years of age twice a week while children above five years and those above 10 years would be given medicines of different strengths on a weekly basis," Surendra said. "The procurement of medicines would be completed within one-and-a-half-months, after which the programme would be rolled out."

Earlier, Priya said supervisors at the ICDS centres had been provided with tablets while anganwadi sevikas had been given cellphones so that they could upload information about the ICDS programmes via mobile apps. She said the programme was helpful in monitoring the ICDS programmes as anganwadi sevikas are supposed to upload pictures as well as information about the programmes.

Team leader (nutrition) of Care India, Devaji Patil, said giving drinking water to babies less than six months of age can raise the possibility of them contracting infections. He suggested babies be breastfed till six months after which complementary diet can be introduced.

"In case the lactating mothers feel that their babies remain thirsty even after consuming milk, they should be given water but not outside water. It would be harmful for them," he said.