New Delhi: The Supreme Court today directed the Centre to establish 14 lakh anganwadis by 2008 under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and asked state governments to extend help in implementing the programme.

A bench headed by Justice Arijit Passayat took strong exception to some of the state governments failing to comply with the Court orders in this regard.

At present, there are six lakh anganwadi centres across the country.

The Court directed the Chief Secretaries of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Haryana to personally appear before it for not implementing the orders and failing to file compliance report.

The Court also directed the Chief Secretaries of 15 states and Union Territories to file an affidavit as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them for not complying with the Court order since 2001.

The Court granted them three months to file the affidavit.