The anganwadi and the ASHA worker

Why these two matter more than the hospital does

Most days, a family in these villages does not need a hospital. It needs a weighing scale, an immunisation date, a supplementary meal for a small child, and someone to call when a pregnancy turns difficult. That is exactly the job of the anganwadi, the village creche that also weighs children and hands out supplementary food and of the ASHA, the accredited social health activist, a trained woman from the village who is the first person a household calls.

On this record they are the strongest part of the health picture in the Dholera villages. 21 of the 22 villages had an anganwadi and 21 had an ASHA worker, against three Primary Health Centres in the whole taluka and no Community Health Centre at all. A self help group, which is a savings and lending circle usually run by women, was recorded in 22 of the 22.

There is one oddity in the record and it is worth flagging rather than smoothing over. The child development scheme the anganwadi belongs to, ICDS is recorded as absent in all 22 villages, even though the anganwadi is recorded as present in 21 of them. The two columns should broadly agree. They do not, the source is what it is, and this register prints both rather than choosing the tidier one.

The services that reach a household without the household travellingCensus of India 2011, Village Directory. The amenity columns carry an internal reference year of 2009, so this describes the ground in 2009 and not today.

Where this comes from: Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, District Census Handbook, Village Directory, Gujarat (state code 24), sheet Village_Data_2400, 396 columns. Census year 2011, amenity reference year 2009.
Last verified: 10 August 2026.

What this table cannot tell you It cannot tell you whether the anganwadi opened on any given day, how many children it fed, or whether the ASHA worker was trained. The census records presence, and presence is not performance.

Village by village

Village by villageCensus of India 2011, Village Directory. The amenity columns carry an internal reference year of 2009, so this describes the ground in 2009 and not today.

Where this comes from: Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, District Census Handbook, Village Directory, Gujarat (state code 24), sheet Village_Data_2400, 396 columns. Census year 2011, amenity reference year 2009.
Last verified: 10 August 2026.

What this table cannot tell you It cannot name the worker or the centre. The Village Directory records only whether one existed, never which one, so nothing here can be matched to a building.

One warning that applies to this whole page. The census amenity columns describe 2009, not 2026. Nothing built in the Dholera region after 2009 is in them, and an absence here is not proof of an absence on the ground today. It is proof that the last national survey of these villages did not find one.

Related: Doctors actually posted · Health centres and hospital beds · How far children travel for school · All 22 villages at a glance