Thursday, January 21, 2010

National Mission for Empowerment of Women to be launched soon - Smt. Krishna Tirath
  
In order to ensure empowerment of women in all spheres – economic, social, political and legal, this Government is proposing to set up a National Mission for Empowerment of Women. It is for the first time that the Government is proposing to ensure that the benefits of all programmes reach the beneficiaries on a convergent basis. The Mission to be launch soon will coordinate the activities of various participating ministries and strive for convergence among them. This was stated by Smt. Krishna Tirath while addressing Social Editors’ Conference here today.

Highlighting the measures being taken to strengthen legal provisions for the welfare of women, Smt. Krishna Tirath said that the Ministry has set up an Inter Ministerial Group to finalise the proposed Bill for Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace and a proposal for restructuring and expansion of Rashtriya Mahila Kosh and the premier micro credit agency for women to raise its corpus to Rs. 500 crore from the present Rs. 100 crore is under active consideration.

In order to addresses the issue of under nutrition and nutrition deficiency in children, the Minister said that 7073 ICDS projects have been sanctioned under which 14 lakhs Anganwadi Centres would be functioning in the long run. With this every habitation shall get access to services at Anganwadi Centre by the end of 2010-11. The Minister said that ICDS Platform would be expanded to include Adolescent Girls through Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls [RGSEAG] -‘SABLA’. This comprehensive scheme for empowerment of adolescent girls will be launched soon by the Ministry.

Beside this, the Ministry has formulated a new scheme, namely, “Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY)” – Conditional Maternity Benefit (CMB) Scheme. This scheme will be piloted in 95 districts under the scheme, conditional cash transfer would be given to pregnant woman and lactating mothers so that she enhances maternal care and nutrition, WCD Minister disclosed.

Smt. Krishna Tirath said that a new scheme the Integrated Child Protection Scheme, 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, has been launched. The new scheme will be primarily implemented through the State Governments and States will play important role in effective implementation of the scheme. The Planning Commission has allocated Rs.1073.00 crore for implementation of this scheme during the 11th Plan Period. The budget allocation for the current financial year 2009-10 is Rs.60.00 crore. Six State Governments namely Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur have already signed the MOU with the Ministry for implementation of this scheme. The State Governments of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam and Goa have also communicated their willingness to sign the MOU with the Ministry. The Proposal from the remaining State Governments are awaited, she added.

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