Palna Ghar (Crèche) Scheme, Uttarakhand

What is the Palna Ghar scheme in Uttarakhand?

Palna Ghar is the crèche and day-care programme delivered in Uttarakhand by the Department of Women Empowerment and Child Development. A Palna Ghar: literally a cradle house, is a place where a child between 6 months and 6 years is looked after through the working day while the parents are away at work, and where the child also receives food, health monitoring and, from age three, structured pre-school learning.

Uttarakhand delivers Palna Ghar through its existing Anganwadi network. Under the Palna component of the Government of India's Mission Shakti umbrella, selected Anganwadi centres are converted into Anganwadi-cum-Crèche centres (AWCCs) with two additional staff and extended hours, so that a centre that earlier ran a few hours of pre-school now provides full day care. According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, 3,130 Anganwadi-cum-Crèche centres were operational across the country as on 31 March 2026.

Why the scheme exists

• Mothers in Uttarakhand's hill districts carry a heavy load of farm, fodder and water work, and infants are otherwise left with older siblings or taken to the field.
• Women in Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital increasingly work in factories, hotels, hospitals and offices with fixed hours and no employer crèche.
• Children of 6 months to 3 years fall in the gap between the end of maternity leave and the start of Anganwadi pre-school at age 3. Palna Ghar closes exactly that gap.
• Safe day care measurably raises women's ability to stay in paid work, which is the department's stated aim alongside child development.

What does a child get at a Palna Ghar?

According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development's description of the Palna crèche, each centre provides:

• Day care and supervision for the full working day, decided locally.
• Sleeping facilities for infants, with cradles, mats and a clean rest area.
• Early stimulation for children below 3 years, play, sensory activity, language and motor development.
• Pre-school education for children between 3 and 6 years, following the Anganwadi pre-school curriculum.
• Supplementary nutrition, sourced locally, served during crèche hours in addition to the take-home ration the child's family may already receive.
• Growth monitoring, with weight and height recorded and plotted so that faltering growth is caught early.
• Health check-ups and immunisation linkage, coordinated with the ANM and the village health and nutrition day.

Staffing. Each Anganwadi-cum-Crèche has one Crèche Worker, who must have passed at least Class 12, and one Crèche Helper, who must have passed at least Class 10. They work in addition to the regular Anganwadi worker and Anganwadi helper already posted at the centre, so a converted centre has four staff rather than two.

There is no cash transfer under Palna Ghar. The benefit is the service itself, care, food and supervision — and the value of that service to a household where the mother earns a daily wage is easily larger than most small cash schemes.

Who is eligible for Palna Ghar, and who is not?

Your child can be enrolled if:

• The child is aged between 6 months and 6 years on the date of enrolment.
• The family lives in the catchment area of an Anganwadi centre in Uttarakhand that has been converted into an Anganwadi-cum-Crèche.
• You can produce the child's birth certificate, an identity document for a parent and a proof of residence in the area.
• The child's immunisation record is available or can be reconstructed with the ANM, so the crèche can follow up pending doses.

Your child is not eligible, and you cannot apply, if:

• The child is under 6 months old. Infants below that age are not admitted; the mother is instead supported through maternity benefit and Anganwadi take-home-ration schemes.
• The child has already turned 6 years, at which point the child should be in primary school and can be linked to the mid-day meal instead.
• The family does not live in the catchment of the centre. Enrol at the Anganwadi covering your own habitation, not a more convenient one.
• No Anganwadi-cum-Crèche has been sanctioned in your area. In that case only the regular Anganwadi services are available; ask the Child Development Project Officer whether a crèche is proposed for your block.

There is no income ceiling, no caste restriction and no requirement to hold a BPL card. The Ministry's position is explicit that the crèche facility is to be provided to all mothers irrespective of employment status, so a mother who works unpaid at home is not disqualified, but where seats are limited, centres give first claim to households where the mother is out at work.

How to apply for a Palna Ghar crèche place

Palna Ghar has no online application. Enrolment is done face to face at the centre, which keeps it accessible to families without smartphones or connectivity.

1. Find your Anganwadi-cum-Crèche. Ask your Anganwadi worker, ASHA or the Gram Panchayat which centre in the area has been converted into an Anganwadi-cum-Crèche. In urban wards, ask the supervisor of the ICDS project.
2. Visit with the child and the documents. Take the child's birth certificate, your Aadhaar, a residence proof such as the ration card or electricity bill, and the child's immunisation card.
3. Ask the worker to make the crèche register entry. The crèche worker records the child's name, date of birth, parents' names, address, weight, height and immunisation status, and opens an attendance page for the child.
4. Confirm the timings and the fee. Note the opening and closing time set for your centre and ask whether any nominal contribution is collected. Get the answer from the worker, not from a neighbour.
5. Complete the health entry. The ANM records the child's immunisation status at the next village health and nutrition day and schedules any missed doses.
6. Start attendance. Send the child from the agreed date. Attendance is marked daily; long unexplained absence can cost the place where the centre has a waiting list.

For a household new to the area, get the child's name transferred from the previous Anganwadi's register by asking the earlier worker for a transfer slip. This avoids the child being counted twice or dropped entirely from the nutrition list.

How do I check whether the crèche is working properly?

Palna Ghar has no online status tracker, so oversight is local and physical. Ask to see the crèche attendance register and your child's growth chart: parents are entitled to look at both. Check that the recorded weight and height match a recent measurement, that the supplementary nutrition is actually being served during crèche hours, and that the crèche worker and helper are present.

The Child Development Project Officer of the block inspects centres, and the District Programme Officer supervises across the district. Contact details for Child Development Project Officers and District Programme Officers are published as downloadable lists on wecd.uk.gov.in.

What commonly goes wrong, and how do I fix it?

• No crèche in the village. Only selected Anganwadi centres are converted. Take a written request through the Gram Panchayat to the Child Development Project Officer asking that the centre be considered for conversion.
• Child refused for want of Aadhaar. A child's Aadhaar is not a bar to admission. Enrol on the birth certificate and get the Aadhaar made afterwards.
• Birth certificate not available. Get a delayed registration done through the Gram Panchayat or Nagar Nigam. In the meantime, the immunisation card and the hospital discharge slip establish the date of birth.
• Crèche closes early. Timings are fixed by the state for local need, but a centre that closes before its notified hour should be reported to the supervisor and the Child Development Project Officer.
• Nutrition not served. Raise it with the supervisor. Supplementary nutrition during crèche hours is part of the sanctioned package, not an optional extra.
• A charge demanded beyond the notified fee. No staff member may collect money beyond what the department has notified. Report it to the Child Development Project Officer in writing.

What are the key dates?

Palna Ghar has no application window and no last date. Enrolment is open all year, and a child becomes eligible the day they turn 6 months and remains eligible until the sixth birthday. The practical timing that matters is conversion: a village gets a crèche only when its Anganwadi centre is sanctioned as an Anganwadi-cum-Crèche, and those sanctions are issued in batches by the department.

Where do I take a grievance?

Take a service complaint in this order: the Anganwadi worker, then the ICDS supervisor, then the Child Development Project Officer of the block, then the District Programme Officer. The Department of Women Empowerment and Child Development, Uttarakhand, at the Directorate in Dehradun, is the final departmental authority, and it publishes a feedback route on wecd.uk.gov.in.

Anything touching a child's safety; injury, neglect, abuse or an unsafe building, should not wait for that chain. Call the child helpline 1098 immediately; it operates round the clock across Uttarakhand under the Ministry of Women and Child Development's child protection framework.