The premises of this second Anganwadi centre was similar to the first, except that it was so high that children would typically have to pole-vault into the centre. They seemed to manage well given that there were about 40 children and adolescent girls in all there. The AWW was apologetic about the state of the centre (which had a few cracks and was in fairly good condition) and added that the construction work around was also creating problems in the environs. She tried to impress upon us that her centre functioned very well (by showing us the registers) and she had no complaints about anything. We left soon after knowing that there was little we could learn here.

Sunipur

About 2 kms from Umreh is Sunipur. In contrast to Umreh, which is a rather compact village, Sunipur seemed scattered with the Jat community residences clustered away from the rest of the village. The village itself sprawled on a good two kilometres away from the centre on until the highway. Most of the people here were SCs, or so we were told. The Anganwadi was shut when we arrived. We met a group of women here and spoke to them about the Anganwadi.

The mood of the women was one of indignation and they were very vocal with their complaints. The Anganwadi centre opened for about an hour everyday 12-1 pm. Murmura was given here – a handful to each. Even within the same family some seem to have been enrolled while others weren’t. No pre-school education, health and nutrition education of any sort were happening. They were not familiar at all with the Mothers card we showed them (though some maintained the AWW had them). Despite their complaints, it did seem that the basic health services were indeed being provided – they mentioned that the ANM came by every month and gave them injections and “golis”. Here too there seemed to be virtually no caste-related problems. There was a primary school here and most children went there.