Min disagrees with Law Common over min marriageable age for boys

Jaipur, Feb 8 (UNI) Rajasthan's Women and Child Development Minister Kanak Mal Katara has expressed diagreement with the National Law Commission's suggestion for lowering of the minimum marriageable age for boys from the present 21 to 18 years.

Talking to reporters here today, Mr Katara said that everyone was well aware of the disadvantages of lowering of marriage age and he did share the established opinion in this regard.

However, Mr Katara remained non committal over the Rajasthan government's formal stand and approach over the issue and said that the state government was yet to think over the matter.

He expressed satisfaction over the general atmosphere being generated in the state against the social evil of child marriage.

Mr Katara said that the evil was now showing a declining trend.

He said that the state government machinery was also taking all possible measures to prevent child marriages.

He said as many as 660 child marriages had so far been prevented with timely intervention of the officials concerned, since April last.

Highlighting the five point programme of Women empowerment launched by the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan since April last year, Mr Katara said that this was meant to ensure hundred per cent enrollment of the girl child by 2011, institutional delivery facility to every woman and bringing down the crude birth rate to 21 per 1000 in the next 3 years.

He said that effective implementation of women and child development programmes in the state had yielded good results with maternal mortality rate declining from 667 in 1999 to 445 in 2005 and child mortality rate falling to 65 (in 2005) from the corresponding figures of 75 in 1999.

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