EVS DA#2

17BEM0049

VEDANT KARNATAK
17BEM0049
VIT
Women and Child Welfare Schemes
in India
Women and Child Welfare Schemes in India!
Women constitute 48 per cent of the total population of the country. They
suffer many disadvantages as compared to men in literary rates, labour
participation rates and earnings. The development of women has been
receiving attention of the Government of India from the First Plan. But it was
treated as a subject of ‘welfare’ and clubbed together with the welfare of the
disadvantaged groups like destitute, disabled, aged, etc. In 1953, the Central
Social Welfare Board was set up which acts as an Apex Body at the Centre to
promote voluntary action at various levels, especially at the grassroots, to
take up welfare-related activities for women and children.

The Second to Fifth Plans continued this strategy, besides giving priority to
women’s education, and launching measures to improve material and child
health services, supplementary feeding for children and expectant and
nursing mothers.

In the Sixth Plan, there was a shift in the approach from ‘welfare’ to
‘development’ of women. The Sixth Plan adopted a multi-disciplinary
approach with special emphasis on the three core sectors of health, education
and employment.

The Seventh Plan stressed on raising their economic and social status and
bringing them into the mainstream of national development. One of the
significant step in this direction was to identify/promote the ‘Beneficiary
Oriented Schemes’ in various developmental sector which extended
direct benefits to women.

The strategy also included the generation of both skilled and unskilled
employment through proper education and vocational training. The Eighth Plan
ensured that the benefits of development to women should flow from other
development sectors and enable women to function as equal partners and
participants in the development process.

The Ninth Plan made two important changes in the strategy of development of
women. The first was the ‘Empowerment of Women’. Its aim was to create an
enabling environment where women could freely exercise their rights both
within and outside home, and are equal partners along with men.

The second was the convergence of existing services available in both

women-specific and women-related sectors to this effect, a special strategy of
‘Women’s Component Plan’ was adopted through which not less than 30 per
cent of funds/benefits now flow to women from all the general development
sectors.

For social and economic development of women, the Centre has set up the
Department of Women and Child Development which has been
implementing the following schemes:
1. Swayamsidha:
Swayamsidha is an integrated scheme for the development and
empowerment of women through self-help groups. It covers services, access
to micro-credit and promotes micro-enterprises.

2. Swashakti Project:
Swashakti Project aims at increasing women’s access to resources for better
quality of life through the use of time reduction devices, by providing health
and education services and by imparting skills to women for income generating
activities.

3. Child Development Services Scheme (CDS):

The scheme started in 1975 with the objective to give special coverage to slums
in urban areas. The scheme also envisages delivery of an integrated package of
services consisting of immunization, health check-ups, nutrition and health
education and refreshment services to child and pregnant women.

4. Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women:

It provides new skills and knowledge to poor assetless women in agriculture,
animal husbandry, dairying, fisheries, sericulture, handlooms, handicrafts
and khadi and village industry sectors of employment.

5. Swavlamban:
This scheme provides training and skills to women to enable them to obtain
employment or become self-employed. The trades in which training is
imparted include computer programming, medical transcription, electronic
assembling, electronics, radio and TV repairs, garment making, handloom
weaving, handicrafts, secretarial practice, embroidery and community health.

6. Creche/Day Care Centres for the Children of Working and Ailing Mothers:
It aims at providing day care services to children (0-5 years) of parents whose
income does not exceed Rs. 1,800 per month. The services include sleeping and
day care facilities, recreation, supplementary nutrition, immunisation and
medicine.

7. Hostels for Working Women:

Under this scheme, financial assistance is provided for construction and
expansion of hostel buildings for working women. It also includes provisions for
safe and affordable accommodation to working women (single or married),
those getting training for employment and girl students studying in
professional courses.

8. Swadhar:
This scheme provides integrated services to women without support from their
families such as widows living at Vrindavan and Kashi; prisoners released from
jail; survivors of natural calamities; women/girls rescued from brothels and
other places; victims of sexual crimes, etc. The scheme includes such services as
food, clothing, shelters, health care, counselling and legal aid and rehabilitation
through education awareness, skill formation and behavioural training.

9. Rashtriya Mahila Kosh:

The National Credit Fund for Women is meant to facilitate credit support
or micro-finance to poor women to start such income generating schemes
as agriculture, dairying, shop-keeping, vending and handicrafts.

10. Welfare of Street Children:

With the objective of weaning away street children from a life of deprivation
and vagrancy and rehabilitating them, An Integrated Programme for Street
Children is being implemented with a wide range of initiatives like 24 hour drop-
in shelters, night shelters, nutrition, healthcare, sanitation, hygiene, safe
drinking water, education, recreational facilities and protection against abuse
and exploitation.

Currently, 190 organisations have been operating in 22 states benefiting 1.58

lakh street children. The special initiative of the Child-line Service, a toll free
telephone service is available to children in distress which responds to the
emergency needs of the children and provides referral service. This facility is
now operating in 34 cities.

Ministry of Women and Child Development

 Ministry of Women and Child Development

Emblem of India

Agency overview

Jurisdiction Republic of India

Headquarters Ministry of Women and Child Development

Shastri Bhawan,

Dr. Rajendra Prasad Road

New Delhi

Annual budget ₹24,700 crore (US$3.8 billion) (2018-19 est.) [1]

Maneka Gandhi, Ministry of Women and Child

Minister
Development
responsible

Website wcd.nic.in

The Ministry of Women and Child Development, a branch of the Government of India, is the apex body for
formulation and administration of the rules and regulations and laws relating
to women and child development in India. The current minister for the Ministry
of Women and Child Development is Maneka Gandhi having held the portfolio
since May, 2014.

History
The Department of Women and Child Development was set up in the year 1985
as a part of the Ministry of Human Resource Development to give the much
needed impetus to the holistic development of women and children. With
effect from 30.01.2006, the Department has been upgraded to a Ministry.

Mandate
The broad mandate of Ministry is to have holistic development of Women and
Children. As a nodal Ministry for the advancement of women and children, the
Ministry formulates plans, policies and programmes; enacts/ amends
legislation, guides and coordinates the efforts of both governmental and non-
governmental organisations working in the field of Women and Child
Development. Besides, playing its nodal role, the Ministry implements certain
innovative programmes for women and children. These programmes cover
welfare and support services, training for employment and income generation,
awareness generation and gender sensitization. These programmes play a
supplementary and complementary role to the other general developmental
programmes in the sectors of health, education, rural development etc. All
these efforts are directed to ensure that women are empowered both
economically and socially and thus become equal partners in national
development along with men.[2]
Policy Initiatives
For holistic development of the child, the Ministry has been implementing the
world's largest outreach programme of Integrated Child Development Services
(ICDS) providing a package of services comprising supplementary nutrition,
immunization, health check-up and referral services, pre-school non-formal
education. There is effective coordination and monitoring of various sectoral
programmes. Most of the programmes of the Ministry are run through non-
governmental organisations. Efforts are made to have more effective
involvement of NGOs. The major policy initiatives undertaken by the Ministry in
the recent past include universalisation of ICDS and Kishori Shakti Yojana,
launching a nutrition programme for adolescent girls, establishment of the
Commission for protection of Child Rights and enactment of Protection of
Women from Domestic Violence Act. The ministry also gives the annual Stree
Shakti Puraskar in six categories, namely Devi Ahilya Bai Holkar, Kannagi Award,
Mata Jijabai Award, Rani Gaidinliu Zeliang Award, Rani Lakshmi Bai Award and
Rani Rudramma Devi (for both men & women).

Organisation
The Ministry of Women and Child Development is headed by Smt. Maneka
Sanjay Gandhi, Minister; Mr. Shankar Aggarwal is the Secretary and Mr.
A.B.Joshi and Ms. Preeti Sudan are Additional Secretaries of the Ministry of
Women and Child Development. The activities of the Ministry are undertaken
through seven bureaux. The Ministry has 6 autonomous organisations
working under its aegis.
 National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD)
National Commission for women (NCW)
National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR)
Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA)
Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB)
Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK)
NIPCCD and RMK are societies registered under the Societies Registration Act,
1860. CSWB is a charitable company registered under section 25 of the Indian
Companies Act, 1956. These organisations are fully funded by the Govt. of India
and they assist the Department in its functions including implementation of
some programmes/schemes. The National Commission for Women was
constituted as a national apex statutory body in 1992 for protecting and
safeguarding the rights of women. The National Commission for Protection of
Child Rights which is a national level apex statutory body constituted in the
March 2007 for protecting and safe guarding the rights of children.[2]
Subjects Allocated to the Ministry

Integrated Child Protection Scheme

Welfare of the family.

Women and Child Welfare and Coordination of activities of other
Ministries and Organization in connection with this subject.
References from the United Nations National Nutrition Policy, national
Plan of Action for Nutrition and National Nutrition Mission.
Charitable and religious endowments pertaining to subjects allocated to this
Department
Promotion and development of voluntary effort on the subjects allocated to
this Department
Implementation of -
Immoral Traffic in Women and Girl Act. 1956 (as amended up to 1986) .
The Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986 (60 of
1986).
The Dowry Prohibition Act. 1961 (28 of 1961)
The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987 (3 of 1988), excluding the
administration of criminal justice in regard to offences under these Acts.
Implementation of the Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant
Food (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1992 (41 of
1992).
 Coordination of activities of Cooperative for Assistance and Relief
Everywhere (CARE)
Planning, Research, Evaluation, Monitoring, Project Formulations, Statistics
and Training relating to the welfare and development of women and
children, including development of gender sensitive data base.
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB)
National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD)
Food and Nutrition Board
Food and Nutrition Board (FNB)
Development and popularization of subsidiary and protective foods.
Nutrition extension.
Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equity.
National Commission for Women.
Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK)
The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 (56 of
2000).
Probation of Juvenile offenders.
Issues relating to adoption, Central Adoption Resource Agency and Child
Help Line (Childline).
The Children Act, 1960 (60 of 1960).
The Child Marriage – Restraint Act, 1929 (19 of 1929).

b)

How can the changing status of women help

improve the human condition?
Top priority
In the Millennium Project’s global challenges, the status of women is numbered
11 out of 15. While probably not intended to represent rank, the changing status
of women is far more fundamental than this number represents.
It underpins the achievement of all the goals, particularly MDG2 (universal
primary education), MDG3(equality and women’s empowerment)
and MDG5 (maternal health). In fact, it is hard to imagine any of the other 14
global challenges in the State of the Future not benefiting from the
improved status of women.

Equally, unless these other challenges are genuinely approached with a

true understanding of gender, it is hard to imagine much success.

A society where the female voice is sought and heard, where the principles of
equity (fairness) and equality (opportunity) co-exist, where gender-based
violence is not committed or excused, is a more powerful and effective society.

From Kofi Annan espousing the power and importance of educating girls (and
boys) as the most powerful development policy, to Ban Ki-moon highlighting the
factual links between educated girls and enhanced health and maternal
outcomes, the value of creating a more equal world is clearly fundamental to
improving the human condition.

The other half

Our second observation, is directly related to expediting progress towards
changing women’s status. Although we have increasing numbers of female
CEOs, board members, politicians and even a few female national leaders, we
are far from equality.

Rafts of programs and policies have had little effect – according to

Queensland University’s Dr Terrence Fitzsimmons, with over 2,000 studies on
gender disparity in leadership positions continuing to be debated.

What we observe, amongst these discussions, is that whilst there are many
associations, conferences, panels and programs to address gender equity and
equality – in business, development and politics – there are strikingly few or no
men involved.

For example, one of the roles of UN Women Australia is to “Challenge attitudes

which perpetuate gender inequality in Australia and globally”, yet its national
board is 100% female. We suggest that the inclusion of men on such boards (or
panels, task-forces and programs) may have significant impact – or at least, is
worthy of consideration.
One such example, that is working well, is the White Ribbon campaign. This is a
male-led campaign (led by a female CEO), where men are addressing the
issues of violence against women; issues that clearly impact women’s status.

Prevention of domestic violence obviously requires men’s input, and their

direct involvement in this campaign is a successful example of where focusing
on men’s role can improve the status of women. Here women and men are
working effectively together to change the status of women.

Women’s business
Our third argument in regards to the need for changing the status of women is
about presenting the arguments for change as both a moral and economic
imperative. With an estimated control of over 70% of global consumer
spending, women are strongly influencing market preferences.

University of Oxford’s Professor Linda Scott recently coined the term the
Double X Economy to describe the global economy of women. She argues that:
“While women have always engaged in economic behaviour, their activities and
outcomes have usually gone unnoticed, unmeasured, untracked, and
unregulated, because of assumptions and limitations inherent in conventional
economic thought”.

By recognising the role of consumption in economic development, women’s

influence on consumption patterns becomes strikingly important, and begins
to reveal the power and reach of the women’s economy. As outlined by
Professor Scott, women are often employed in informal work or in un-
monetised work, and so their considerable power has been made invisible.