AP govt introduces measures for women empowerment

Hyderabad, Oct 4 (UNI) Andhra Pradesh Minister for Women Development and Child Welfare N Rajyalakshmi today said the state government had initiated several measures for women empowerment and protection of their rights.

Addressing officers of the Women Development and Child Welfare Department after signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with College of Home Sciences, Achayra N G Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) to provide technological knowledge to train and conduct training classs for women here, she said the major activities of the department was implementation of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) across the state with 385 ICDS projects covering all the mandals.

The department was running 93 institutions for Children and 36 institutions for women to cater to the needs of children and women in difficult circumstances, she said.

Though the Government was spending Rs 1000 crore every year under ICDS projects, there were some lapses in the implementation of the schemes in some parts, she said and expressed concern that the nutritious food supposed to be provided to the children was not reaching properely due to lack of commitment.

She said the department was running 81 children homes and swadhar shelter homes for women in difficult circumstances to cover primary needs of shelter, food, clothing and care besides emotional support, counselling and rehabilitation of the women and girls rescued from trafficing.

She said supplementary nutrition programme was one of the prime services rendered under ICDS to the children in the age group of six month to six years, pregnant women and lactating mothers for providing nutritious food.

She underlined the need to constitute a coordination commitee with the College of Home Sciences and the Child Welfare department authorities to oversee the programmes to be taken up by both the organisations.

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