Review of the year – 2009

  • 35,614 ADDITIONAL ANGANWADIS OPENED TO PROVIDE NUTRITIONSUPPORT TO CHILDREN
  • A NEW SCHEME FOR EMPOWERMENT OF ADOLESCENT (SABLA) PROPOSED
  • NATIONAL MISSION FOR WOMEN FOR HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN TAKES SHAPE

A number of new initiatives for the welfare of women and children  initiated during 2009 and the Government declared the empowerment of women as core priority area by proposing National Mission for Women, restructuring of Rashtriya Mahila Kosh and initiating new welfare schemes for maternity benefits adolescent girls.

35,614 additional Anganwadi Centres have so far been operationalised during the year upto 30th September, 2009. The number of the Anganwadies across the country has gone to 10,79,883 providing supplementary nutrition to 6.88 crore children and pre-school education to 3.32 crore children. An amount of Rs.4973.10 crore has been released under Integrated Child Development Scheme to the State upto December 3, 2009.

In order to ensure holistic empowerment of women the Government has prepared a proposal to set up National Mission for Empowerment of Women. The Mission will ensure convergence of various schemes and programmes for the development and welfare of the women. It will ensure single window delivery and

monitoring of all round development of women. After consultation with the various stakeholders and concerned departments, further necessary action is being taken to formally launch the Mission. This is the outcome of the recommendations made by the Group of Ministers. Formal structure of the National, State and would be set up to work with the issues of empowerment of women holistically and pilot projects will be launched at village level.

The Ministry has also evolved a new scheme i.e. SABLA for the adolescent girls in the age group of 11-18 years to improve the health and nutrition status and to empower them. The scheme will be launched very soon. Planning Commission has earmarked Rs.4500 crores for this scheme for the XIth Plan period. Beside this, the Government has also approved continuation of the National Programme for Adolescent Girls for 2009-10 in 51 selected districts to improve the nutrition status of underweight Adolescent Girls.

A scheme for conditional maternity benefit, aiming to provide cash transfer to pregnant and lactating mothers for promoting their nutritional and health status based on certain milestones is under formulation in consultation with the Planning Commission and Core Committee. A sum of Rs.4500 crores for this scheme in the XIth Plan period already allocated

A new scheme the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) aimed at improving the well being of children in difficult circumstances including children in conflict with law and children in need of care and protection formerly launched this year. A sum of Rs.60 crore has been allocated for the scheme for the current year. This scheme is to be primarily implemented through the State Governments. The Ministry has signed Memoranda of Understanding for implementation of ICPS, with the Government of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur beside this the Government of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam & Goa have also communicated willingness to sign MoU for the speedy implementation of the scheme in their respective States.

In order to provide loan to self-help groups of women and other women entrepreneurs, the Government also initiated to restructuring of  Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK). A sub-group has been formed in the Ministry to develop the concept and framework for restructuring of RMK with representatives from RBI, SIDBI, NABARAD, CAPART and Department of Banking, Ministry of Finance.

Ministry of Women and Child Development proposed to implement the Central Sector Scheme of Women’s Empowerment & Livelihood Programme in Priyadarshini during the year. The objective of this project is to empower in a holistic & sustainable manner vulnerable groups of women to enable them to address their social, political, legal, health and economic problems. The Programme is assisted by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The Lead Programme Agency for implementation is the National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (NABARD). The project will be of 8 years duration. It is being implemented in select districts of the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

During the year, the Ministry also launched a campaign to create awareness against domestic violence by involving Anganwadi workers working across the more than ten lakh Anganwadi Centres in the country on October 2, 2009.  Similarly the campaign  ‘Daughers Against Dowry’ to create awareness against the evil of dowry and issues related with the empowerment of girl child was launched in the month of November, 2009.

The Ministry conceptualize E-Tracking and Social Auditing of its programme to bring transparency, accountability and innovation in its women and child development programmes this year. The Ministry also convened State Governments’ Meet in October to hold detailed discussion on schemes related to Women & Child Development and to prepare action plan for time bound implementation of some of the scheme to give further Philip to women and child development in the country

Source : Ministry of Women and Child Development – PIB release