Impact of ICDS on Developmental Milestones of Children under Five (2-5Yrs) in Telangana

Children are the nations most precious resource, and nurturing children is an investment to ensure a brilliant future for the nation. The ICDS Services is Indias response to the challenge of meeting the holistic needs of the child and is one of the worlds largest and most unique outreach programme for early childhood care and development. So in the present study, an attempt was made to find out the developmental status of children who are attending and not attending anganwadies and study the impact of ICDS on developmental status of children. Developmental schedules was used to assess the 3-5 years old children. Findings of the study revealed there is significant difference between anganwadi and non anganwadi children in cognitive, language and motor areas of development. The children who are attending anganwadi performed better than children who are not attending anganwadi.