WELFARE SCHEMES FOR WOMEN

A number of welfare schemes for women have been undertaken by the Government of India. The details of such schemes under implementation by Ministry of Women and Child Development are as under: 

      i.          RAJIV GANDHI NATIONAL CRECHE SCHEME FOR THE CHILDREN OF WORKING MOTHERS(RGNCS) provides day care facilities to the children in the age group 0-6 years from families with monthly income of less than 12000/-. In addition to being a safe space for the children, the crèches provide services such as supplementary nutrition, pre-school education and emergency health care, etc.

    ii.          CENTRAL SOCIAL WELFARE BOARD : The main women welfare Related schemes and programmes being implemented by CSWB are as under:-

·      Family Counselling Centres: It was introduced in1983.  The centres provide counselling, referral and rehabilitative services to women and children who are victims of atrocities, family maladjustment and social ostracism. They also provide crisisintervention and trauma counselling in case of natural disasters.

·      Awareness Generation Programme: This scheme aims at creating awareness amongst women and the community at large on rights, status and problems of women in particular and other social concerns.

·      Condensed courses of education for women: This scheme caters to the needs of girls/women who could not join mainstream education system or who were drop outs from formal schools.  The scheme aims to provide educational opportunities to girls/women above the age of 15 years along with additional inputs of skill development/vocationaltraining.  The contents of the course are need based and modified according to local requirement.

  iii.          NATIONAL MISSION FOR EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN (NMEW) is an initiative of the Government of India for empowering women holistically. It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme sanctioned inApril 2011 and acts as an umbrella Mission with a mandate to strengthen inter-sectoral convergence and facilitate the process of coordination of all the women’s welfare and socio-economic development programmes across Ministries and Departments. NMEW is being implemented in all the 35 States and Union Territories.

  iv.          WORKING WOMEN’S HOSTEL (WWH) Scheme envisages provision of safe and affordable hostel accommodation to working women, single working women, women working at places away from their home-towns andfor women being trained for employment. The scheme has been revisedrecently.

    v.          SUPPORT TO TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMME (STEP) for Women was launched as a Central Sector Scheme during 1986-87. It aims at making a significant impact on women by upgrading skills for self and wage employment. The target group includes the marginalized assetless rural Women and urban poor. This also includes wage labourers, unpaid daily workers, female headed households, migrant labourers, tribal and other dispossessed groups, with special focus on SC/ST households, women headed households and families below the poverty line.

  vi.          RASHTRIYA MAHILA KOSH (RMK) with a corpus of Rs.100 crore extends micro-finance services to bring about the socio-economic upliftment of poor women. Credit is provided to the poor women beneficiaries through Intermediary MicrofinancingOrganisations (IMOs) working at grass root level such as NGOs, Women Federations, Co-operatives, not for profit companies registered under Section 25 of the Companies Act and other Voluntary/Civil society organisations etc. by following a client friendly, simple, without collateral, for livelihood and income generation activities, housing and micro-enterprises.

vii.          WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT AND LIVELIHOOD PROGRAMME IN MID-GANGETIC PLAIN (WELP) also calledPriyadarshini is being implemented with assistance of International Fund for Agricultural Development in 13 Blocks spread over 5 Districts inUttar Pradesh i.e. Bahraich, CSM Nagar, Raebareli, Shravasti and Sultanpur and 2 Districts Madhubani and Sitamarhi in Bihar. It aims at holistic empowerment of vulnerable groups of women and adolescent girls in the project area throughformation of Women’s Self Help Groups (SHGs) and promotion of improved livelihood opportunities. Over 1,00,000 households are to be covered under the project and 7,200 SHGs will be formed during the project period ending 2016-17. The beneficiaries are expected to be empowered to address their political, legal and health issues through rigorous capacity building. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development is the lead programme agency forimplementation of the programme which became effective in December 2009.  

viii.          INDIRA GANDHI MATRITVA SAHYOG YOJANA (IGMSY) is a Conditional Cash Transfer scheme for pregnant and lactating (P&L) womenintroduced in the October 2010 to contribute to better enabling environment by providing cash incentives for improved health and nutrition to pregnant and nursing mothers. It envisages providing cash to P&L women during pregnancy and lactation in response to individual fulfilling specific conditions. It addresses short term income support objectives with long term objective of behaviour and attitudinal change.  The scheme attempts to partly compensate for wage loss to P&L women both prior to and after delivery of the child. The scheme is being implemented initially on pilot basis in 52 selected districts using the platform of ICDS. 12.5 lakh P&L women are expected to be covered every year under IGMSY. The beneficiaries are paid  4000/ inthree instalments per P&L women between the second trimester till the child attains the age of 6 months on fulfilling specific conditions related to maternal and child health .

  ix.          SWADHAR GREH SCHEME: The Ministry of Women and Child Development had been administering Swadhar scheme since 2001 for Womenin difficult circumstances. Under the Scheme, temporary accommodation, maintenance and rehabilitative services are provided to women and girls rendered homeless due to family discord, crime, violence, mental stress, social ostracism. Another scheme with similar objectives/target groups namely Short Stay Home (SSH) was being implemented by Central Social Welfare Board.  Being similar in objectives and target groups, both the schemes have been merged to Swadhar Greh scheme with revised financial parameters.

    x.          UJJAWALA is a comprehensive scheme for prevention of trafficking and rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation. Funds are released to NGOs as the scheme is being implemented mainly through NGOs.

The quantum of funds allocated and released under the schemes during the last three years and the current year is as below:

SlNo	Name of Scheme	2008-09		2009-10		2010-11		2011-12
		Allocation	Released	Allocation	Released	Allocation	Released	Allocation	Released
1	RGNCS	100	87.3	100	99.89	70	69.35	85	73.76 (Feb'12)
2	CSWB-FamilyCounselling	16.97	6.23	15.81	11.47	15.29	24.81	13.7	10.48
									(Feb'12)
3	CSWB-Awareness Generation	5.37	3.15	3	5.99	3.5	3.5	1.86	1.01
									(Feb'12)
4	CSWB-Condensed Course	7.57	3.82	4.47	7	7.83	7.45	3.04	2.23
									(Feb'12)
5	NMEW	Not App	Not App	Not App	Not App	Not App	Not App	40	6.01
6	WWH	20	2.41	10	9.17	15	14.29	10	0.4
7	STEP	37	16.02	15	12.29	25	24.32	20	3.72
8	RMK*	30.3	26.48	14.71	15.63	12.78	12.49	19.85	12.76
9	WELP	Not App	Not App	0.43	0.23	7.27	1.05	15.01	3.6
10	IGMSY	Not App	Not App	Not App	Not App	390	117.8	520	294
11	Swadhar	15	14.94	20	14.97	34.21	34.21	30	20.52
12	Ujjawala	10	4.36	5	4.98	10	8.68	10	9.7

This was stated by the Minister for Women and Child Development, Smt. Krishna Tirath in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabhatoday.

Source: PIB : sapost