The following is the statement issued by the All India Federation of Anganwadi Workers and Helpers on November 6 AS the culmination of a nine month long campaign to save ICDS from privatisation and dismantling and for the implementation of the recommendations of the 45th Indian Labour Conference on regularisation, minimum wages, social security and pension for anganwadi workers and helpers, nearly fifty thousand anganwadi employees in red uniform will March to Parliament on November 21, 2014. They will bring with them nearly four crore signatures in support of their demands, in a memorandum addressed to the prime minister of India. Since February 2014, the signatures have been collected from all over the country by the anganwadi workers and helpers from the beneficiaries of ICDS, with the help of the beneficiaries’ organisations such as Centre of Indian Trade Unions, All India Kisan Sabha, All India Agricultural Workers Union and All India Democratic Women’s Association. The government is rapidly moving to privatise the ICDS through the ‘ICDS Mission’ – mandatory handing over of the anganwadis to corporate houses and NGOs, allowing diversion of funds of anganwadis to private nursery schools, handing over the supplementary nutrition supply to corporate NGOs and contractors – in various forms. The ICDS, which has proved to be most effective in combating child malnutrition, proved by even the latest surveys and studies, is a scheme assuring the right of children to food, health and education. The government is privatising it to turn it into a charity of the corporates, rather than the right of the people. The anganwadi workers and helpers, the grass root workers who have been working for more than six hours a day, since the last thirty nine years, are not even paid minimum wages or any social security. Instead of strengthening the scheme, the Modi government has declared the winding up of even the Planning Commission, along with the welfare schemes. The All India Federation of Anganwadi Workers and Helpers seeks the support of all citizens in the struggle to ‘Save ICDS’, to strengthen it for the right of the children, to end malnutrition and hunger, to get minimum wages, pension and social security to the employees.