Child Welfare Schemes in West Bengal (2026)

Overview: How West Bengal Supports Children's Health & Development

West Bengal's approach to child welfare spans several government departments, health, women & child development, education, and food & supplies, rather than sitting under one single umbrella scheme. Coverage generally follows a child's age and stage: nutrition and early development support in the earliest years, health interventions like cardiac screening through school years, and education and girl-child-specific support through adolescence.

This page brings together what's currently available, organised roughly by what stage of childhood each programme targets.

Sishu Sathi — Free Child Heart Surgery

Sishu Sathi ("Friend for Children") is one of West Bengal's most distinctive child health initiatives, a scheme providing completely free paediatric cardiac surgery, launched on 21 August 2013 by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

• What It Covers: Free surgery and treatment for children with congenital heart disease and related cardiac conditions, with plans (per official sources) to expand into congenital cataract, cleft lip, and cleft palate surgeries as well.
• Age Eligibility: Free cardiac surgery specifically covers children from infancy up to 12 years of age, whereas broader school health screening (RBSK / Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram) covers children aged 0 to 18 years across Anganwadi centers and schools.
• Income Eligibility: None, all children are eligible irrespective of family income, a deliberate design choice given the high cost of cardiac surgery (historically cited around Rs. 2 lakh privately, fully covered by the state under this scheme).
• How Cases Are Identified: The state conducts health screening in government schools specifically to detect heart ailments, feeding into a referral system where district hospital paediatricians identify cases and refer them to state nodal centres, including Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital (SSKM), B.C. Roy Memorial Hospital for Children, and R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital.
• Capacity & Cost: Historically cited at around 3,000 children treated per year under this scheme. Cost to family is zero, surgery, medicine, and hospital stay are entirely government-funded.

If your child has been flagged for a heart condition through a school health screening, or you suspect a cardiac issue, contacting your nearest district hospital's paediatric department is generally the starting point for referral into this scheme.

Nutrition Support (ICDS / Anganwadi)

For younger children, nutrition support in West Bengal runs primarily through the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme, delivered locally through Anganwadi Centres found across the state:

• Covers children up to 6 years of age, along with pregnant and lactating mothers.
• Provides supplementary nutrition, growth monitoring, basic health check-ups, immunisation referrals, and pre-school (non-formal) education for children in the 3–6 age range.
• Anganwadi Centres are typically the first point of contact for early childhood support at the village/ward level and are staffed by an Anganwadi worker and helper.
• This is a centrally-sponsored scheme implemented at the state level, meaning specific supplementary benefits can vary somewhat, but the core service, accessible nutrition and early development support close to home, is available across West Bengal.

Education & Development Support

As children move into school age, several other schemes on this site become relevant, though they're detailed on their own dedicated pages rather than repeated here:

• Sabooj Sathi: Free bicycles for students in Class 9–12, reducing commuting barriers to secondary school attendance.
• Shikshashree Scheme: An annual stipend for SC and ST students studying in Class V to VIII in government schools.
• Mid-Day Meal Program: Mid-day meal provision in government schools also continues to be a core part of supporting regular school attendance and basic nutrition during the school day, delivered through the state's education infrastructure alongside the centrally-sponsored mid-day meal framework.

Girl Child-Specific Support

West Bengal runs some of its most internationally recognised welfare programmes specifically for girls, extending from adolescence into early adulthood:

• Kanyashree Prakalpa: A UN-recognised conditional cash transfer scheme supporting girls aged 13–18 through school (K1), a one-time grant at 18 (K2), and postgraduate scholarship support (K3), all conditional on remaining unmarried and staying in education.
• Rupashree Prakalpa: While technically a marriage-support scheme rather than a "child" scheme, it works alongside Kanyashree's structural goal of discouraging underage marriage by easing the financial burden once a daughter reaches a legally appropriate marriage age (18+).

Food Security for Children's Households

Children's nutrition also depends on broader household food security: West Bengal's Khadya Sathi scheme provides subsidised food grains to around 90% of the state's population through a fully digital ration card system, which indirectly but significantly supports child nutrition at the household level, especially for families in the AAY, PHH, and SPHH ration categories.

How These Schemes Fit Together by Age

Stage-by-stage summary of available child welfare support in West Bengal:

• 0–6 Years: ICDS/Anganwadi nutrition and early development support; Sishu Sathi if a cardiac condition is identified.
• School Age (General): Mid-day meal support; Sishu Sathi screening continues through government schools.
• Class V–VIII (SC/ST Students): Shikshashree Scheme.
• Class IX–XII: Sabooj Sathi (bicycles); Kanyashree K1 begins at age 13 for girls.
• Age 18 (Unmarried Girls): Kanyashree K2 one-time grant (Rs. 25,000); later K3 for postgraduate study if continuing education; Rupashree Prakalpa for marriage assistance.
• Household-Level Support at Every Stage: Khadya Sathi food security.

Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) and Non-Institutional Foster Care

For orphaned, abandoned, or destitute children needing institutional or family-based rehabilitation:

• State Child Care Institutions (CCIs): Provides free shelter, education, medical care, and vocational training for vulnerable children in government and NGO-run specialized adoption agencies (SAAs).
• Monthly Foster Care & Sponsorship Stipend: Families providing foster care to vulnerable or orphaned children receive a monthly financial sponsorship grant of ₹4,000 per child under ICPS guidelines.
• Childline Toll-Free Helpline (1098): 24x7 emergency helpline for reporting child labor, trafficking, early marriage, or physical abuse, integrated with District Child Protection Units (DCPUs).

Poshan Abhiyaan & Special Take-Home Ration (THR) Formulations

To eradicate severe acute malnutrition (SAM) among infants and young children across West Bengal:

• Enhanced Fortified Take-Home Rations: Anganwadi centres distribute micro-nutrient fortified khichdi mix, lentils, and eggs specifically tailored for malnourished infants aged 6 to 36 months.
• Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres (NRCs): Severely malnourished children are admitted to district hospital NRCs for intensive medical treatment, therapeutic feeding, and parental caregiving stipends.

State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (WBSCPCR) Oversight

The statutory child rights commission enforces legal safeguards for all children across the state:

• RTE Act Compliance & Anti-Dropout Monitoring: Audits government and private schools to enforce the 25% free seat reservation for economically disadvantaged children under the Right to Education Act.
• POCSO Act Legal Support: Provides legal counseling, psychological support, and victim compensation processing for child abuse survivors.

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