Progressive Gujarat too has some black spots: Modi

Ahmedabad, Sep 23 (UNI) Emphasising the role of ''nari shakti (women's power)'' in the development process, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today admitted that though state has achieved economic progress, it has not done remarkably well on certain social parameters that concern women.

''Though Gujarat has been progressive and has done well in many fields than the national average, it has a lot to achieve in certain areas like girls' education, and improving the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and also to curb the practice of female foeticide, which has brought down the ratio of women to 840 per 1000 men,'' he said while addressing a seminar on ''Shakti'' at the Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration here.

Ms Sudha Murthy, chairperson of Infosys Foundation was the keynote speaker at the programme.

Mr Modi said when he took over as Chief Minister, the dismal performance of the state in field of girls' education was the most glaring statistics that stared at him. ''Gujarat ranked 20th in the country, way below even Bihar. That is when I made up my mind to bring about a change and launched a ''Kanya Kelavani'' programme and ''Stree Siksha Abhiyan'' for the purpose.'' He claimed that now the state has achieved 100 per cent enrollment of girls in schools and said the dropout rate too has declined from 49 per cent to eleven per cent.

Speaking on the health sector, hesaid the IMR and MMR too have improved. He said the number of institutional deliveries too have increased in the state. ''We have taken help of the private sector in the initiative to improve the institutional delivery system. To encourage more and more women below the poverty line to avail the facilities, the government, under the Chiranjeevi scheme, has been giving them auto fares, Rs 200 per day in hospital apart from meeting their medical expenses.'' The Chief Minister said there has been 22,000 institutional deliveries under the scheme, that has been in operation for the past eight months in five backward districts of the state.

''There has been just one maternal death in the period. Among infants, while 109 died, about 900 where saved,'' he said.

He regretted that though women participate in several fields, but they do not get the due recognition. ''Women have a major role to play in agriculture, animal husbandry etc but people do not acknowledge their contribution,'' he said.

''Vikas ke raasta mein, hum matru shakti ko jodna chahte hain (we want women to participate in our path to overall progress),'' he said.

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