Schemes for Welfare of Women and Children

INN/New Delhi, @Infodeaofficial

The Ministry of Women and Child Development is implementing two Centrally Sponsored Umbrella schemes – Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and  Mission for Empowerment and Protection for Women across the country, including Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The brief details of major schemes are as under:

Umbrella ICDS :

The Anganwadi Services Scheme is a unique programme for early childhood care and development. It offers a package of six services, viz. Supplementary Nutrition, Pre-School Non-Formal Education, Nutrition and Health Education, Immunization, Health Check-Up and Referral Services. The beneficiaries under the Scheme are children in the age group of 0-6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers.

Poshan Abhiyaan (National Nutrition Mission) targets to reduce the level of stunting, under-nutrition, anemia and low birth weight babies by reducing mal-nutrition/under nutrition, anemia among young children as also, focus on adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers.

1. Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) scheme provides cash incentive amounting to Rs.5,000/- in three installments directly to the Bank/Post Office Account of Pregnant Women and Lactating Mother(PW&LM) in DBT Mode during pregnancy and lactation in response to individual fulfilling specific conditions.
2. Scheme for Adolescent Girls aims at out of school girls in the age group 11-14, to empower and improve their social status through nutrition, life skills and home skills. The scheme has nutritional and non nutritional components which include nutrition; iron and folic acid supplementation; health check up and referral service; nutrition and health education; mainstreaming out of school girls to join formal schooling bridge course/ skill training; life skill education, home management etc,; counselling/ guidance on accessing public services.
3. National Creche Scheme provides day care facilities to children of age group of 6 months to 6 years of working women. The facilities are provided for seven and half hours a day for 26 days in a month. Children are provided with supplementary nutrition, early childcare education, and health and sleeping facilities. 
4. Child Protection Services Scheme aims to contribute to the improvement and well-being of children in difficult circumstances, as well as, reduction of vulnerabilities to situation and actions that leads to abuse, neglect, exploitation, abandonment and separation of children from parent. The Scheme aims to spread awareness regarding the ways and means to prevent all children from child abuse of any kind including child sexual abuse.

1. Mission for Empowerment and Protection for Women:

5.  Mahila Shakti Kendra scheme empowers rural women through community participation by involvement of Student Volunteers. The scheme is envisaged to work at various levels and at the national and state level technical support to the respective government on issues related to women is provided.
6. Swadhar Greh scheme targets women victims of unfortunate circumstances who are in need of institutional support for rehabilitation so that they can lead their life with dignity.
7. Ujjawala is a comprehensive scheme with the objective to prevent trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, to facilitate rescue victims and placing them in safe custody, to provide rehabilitation services by providing basic amenities/needs, to facilitate reintegration of victims into the family and society, to facilitate repatriation of cross border victims.
8. Working Women Hostel aims at providing safe and affordable accommodation to working women. These hostels have day care facility for the children of inmates too. The Ministry provides financial support for establishing such hostels by NGOs or State Governments.
9. Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme is a tri-ministerial initiative of Ministries of Women and Child Development, Health & Family Welfare and Human Resource Development with a focus on awareness and advocacy campaign for changing mindsets, multi-sectoral action in select districts, enabling girls’ education and effective enforcement of Pre-Conception & Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC&PNDT) Act. The specific objectives of the scheme is to address declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR) by preventing gender biased sex selective elimination; ensuring survival and protection of the girl child and ensuring education and participation of the girl child.
10. One Stop Centre (OSC) facilitates access to an integrated range of services including police, medical, legal, psychological support and temporary shelter to women affected by violence. The Scheme is funded through the Nirbhaya Fund.

xiii. Women Helpline Scheme is being implemented since 1st April, 2015 to provide 24 hours emergency and non-emergency response to women affected by violence through referral and information about women related government schemes/programmes across the country through a single uniform number (181).

xiv. Mahila Police Volunteers (MPVs) Scheme is being implemented by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs. It envisages engagement of Mahila Police Volunteers in States/UTs who act as a link between police and community and facilitates women in distress.

The details of Scheme-wise and State/UT-wise funds released and utilized in these schemes during the last five years, including the States of Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are given in Annexure-I.

The Ministry has issued detailed guidelines for each scheme which inter-alia include explicit information about institutional structure, implementation modalities, target beneficiaries, fund flow and disbursal mechanism, monitoring and evaluation mechanism and grievance redressal mechanism.

The proposals from the State Governments, as and when received, under various schemes are considered as per guidelines of those schemes. The schemes have inbuilt monitoring mechanism.

The Ministry has also developed web based Management and Information (MIS) Software to monitor implementation of various schemes such as PMMVY, POSHAN Abhiyaan, and Anganwadi Services.

PMMVY is monitored through PMMVY-CAS and Poshan Abhiyaan and Anganwadi Services through ICDS –CAS. Monitoring of the other schemes is undertaken through meetings and video conferences with the officials of State Governments/UT. Ministry officials undertake field visits to ascertain the status of implementation of the schemes.

This information was given by the Minister of Women and Child Development, Smriti Zubin Irani, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.