4 years of Modi govt: Education of girls key to India's growth

The empowerment of women is an important pre-condition for the development of humanity. It is a matter of pride that women are increasingly playing a bigger role in the development of the nation, right from cities and villages up to Parliament.

No doubt, the Modi led BJP is leading the way, not only in making women-centric policies a focal point of governance but also in ensuring better representation in positions of power.

Let us take a look at the key initiatives by the ministry of women and child development

Modi has always been a vocal proponent of women empowerment. In a refreshing break from the earlier unimaginative governance paradigm of handing out nine LPG cylinders or twelve, Modi has now ensured more than three crore women are living smoke free lives due to the Ujjwala Yojana.

More than six crore toilets have been built to make sanitation safer and more accessible, directly impacting the health and dignity of women. This is not a culture of temporary handouts that keeps people dependent on the government but is a culture of true and irreversible empowerment.

The government is also providing cash incentive of ₹6,000 to pregnant/lactating mothers. More than 50 lakh women are expected to benefit every year from this.

The government is committed to ensuring the safety of girls. Laws have been framed for crimes against girl children. The death penalty has been introduced for those who rape children under 12 years, and the minimum punishment for the rape of a girl under 16 years has increased from 10 years to 20 years.

Beti Padhao Beti Bachao yojna

The prime minister of India launched an initiative in Haryana known as Beti Padhao Beti Bachao yojna to stop girl feticide and to promote education in girls. The scheme showed positive results as many places that had low sex ratio bettered with time. India has a sex ratio of 933 women per one thousand men. The second scheme was to sanction INR 6000 for nourishment of pregnant women.

Other Schemes:

• The government increased the maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks to allow women to take proper rest.
• Under Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Yojna, the government conducted 33 lakh health checkups for women to ensure their safety.
• The government deposited 11,000 crore rupees in 1 crore accounts to ensure better future of daughters.

One Stop Centre Scheme

• One Stop Centres (OSC) support women affected by violence, in private and public spaces, within the family, community and in the workplace.
• Women facing physical, sexual, emotional, psychological and economic abuse, irrespective of age, class, caste, education status, marital status, race and culture will be supported by these centres.

Women Helpline Scheme

• The Women Helpline Scheme seeks to provide 24 hours immediate and emergency response to women affected by violence.
• This scheme was launched by the by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development on 1 April 2015.

Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana

• The scheme seeks to provide free LPG connections to women from below poverty line (BPL) households and builds on the objective of achieving universal coverage of cooking gas in the country.
• Under the scheme, a financial support of 1600 rupees will be provided for each LPG connection to the BPL households.
• Incidentally, this is for the first time the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has involved in implementing a welfare scheme benefitting crores of women belonging to the poorest households.

Mahila E-Haat

• The Ministry of Women and Child Development launched Mahila E-Haat, a bilingual portal on 7 March, 2016.
• It is an initiative for meeting aspirations and needs of women.
• This is a unique direct online marketing platform. It leverages technology for supporting women entrepreneurs, SHGs and NGOs.
• This helps women in showcasing the products and services which are made, manufactured and undertaken by them.

Nirbhaya Fund

Government of India has set up a dedicated and non-lapsable fund called Nirbhaya Fund in 2013, for the implementation of initiatives aimed at enhancing the safety and security for women in the country.

Ministry of Women and Child Development is the nodal authority for appraisal of the schemes/ proposals received under Nirbhaya Fund.

Under the Nirbhaya Fund an amount of Rs. 3600 has been allocated, out of which 5731.95 Crore has been appraised so far.

• Under the 'Safe City Project', the Ministry of Women and Child Development has recently appraised projects worth Rs. 2,919.55 Cr. under the Nirbhaya Fund for eight major cities, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Chennai. The plans have been prepared in coordination with Municipal
• Corporations and Police Commissionerates of these cities. The objective of the project is to make the cities safer for women.

New Taxi Policy

New Taxi Policy Guidelines brought out with better safety measures for women - mandatory GPS panic devices in all taxis, disabling of child-locking system, prominent display of driver's identification with photo and registration number of the vehicle, sharing of seat to be subject to willingness of female passengers etc.

Haj Pilgrimage

Keeping in mind the objective of womens' empowerment, for the first time since independence, the restriction on women above 45 years of age to perform Haj pilgrimage unaccompanied by their male relatives has been removed. This year, more than 1300 women are going on Haj pilgrimage without Mehram.

Passport rules for single mothers:

Passport rules have been amended in favour of single mothers. Now either mother or father's name can be provided in application form and do not have to provide certificate of marriage/divorce during application.

CHILDREN

Complete overhaul of Anganwadi system

Objective: Anganwadi is the basic unit of extending supplementary nutrition and early education services to all children and pregnant/lactating mother. These Anganwadiscover every habitation in the country and the entire set up is being overhauled to ensure that
the designated services reach all beneficiaries.

IT enabled system to ensure real time monitoring

• The delivery of services through Anganwadi is being put on to an IT platform which enables real time monitoring. 95,000+ Anganwadis have been equipped with smartphones with special software backbone.
• This will be expanded to cover all 14 lakh Anganwadis.

Supplementary Nutrition (under the ICDS) Rules, 2017:

• In pursuance of the provisions contained in the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, WCD Ministry has notified the Supplementary Nutrition (under Integrated Child Development Services Scheme) Rules, 2017 on 20th February 2017 to regulate the entitlement specified under provisions of said Act for every pregnant women and lactating mother till 6 months after child birth, and every child in the age group of 6 months to 6 years (including those suffering from malnutrition) for 300 days in a year, as per the nutritional standards specified in Schedule II of the said Act.
• Revision of cost norms for Supplementary Nutrition: The Government has also revised the cost norms for supplementary nutrition with annual indexation under the Anganwadi Services.

Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences

• In 2017, the WCD Ministry took up the issue for dichotomy between IPC Section 375 (rape) and the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), 2012.
• A decision by the Hon'ble Supreme Court this year has criminalized sex between a man and his underage wife - a big success for the Ministry.
• The Ministry is working to prosecute panchayat members for promoting or permitting solemnization of child marriages.

To address the issue of easy availability of child sexual abuse material/imagery, an Inter-Ministerial Committee constituted by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), with membership of MWCD has issued an advisory to all Internet Service
Providers within the country to prevent the distribution and transmission of child sexual abuse material.

A Public Grievance Cell is also active in the WCD Ministry, which gives women and children citizens a way to send their grievances directly to the government. It has already processed ~18,000 complaints in the one year since its inception.

Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Model Rules, 2016.

The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Model Rules, 2016 (JJ Model Rules, 2016) have been notified and published in the Gazette of India, thereby repealing the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Rules, 2007 on 21.09.2016. The JJ Model Rules, 2016 are based on the philosophy that children need to be reformed and
reintegrated into society. The Rules are appreciative of developmental needs of children and therefore the best interest of the child is the primary consideration. Child friendly procedures are incorporated across the board.

IT enabled system to ensure real time monitoring

• The delivery of services through Anganwadi is being put on to an IT platform which enables real time monitoring. 95,000+ Anganwadis have been equipped with smartphones with special software backbone.
• This will be expanded to cover all 14 lakh Anganwadis.