Ministry of Women and Child Development

• 14 Apr 2023

For Prelims: Mission Shakti, Mission Vatsalya, PM CARES Fund, Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, Poshan 2.0, National Crèche Scheme, Nirbhaya Fund.

For Mains: Key Initiatives/ Achievements of MoWCD

Why in News?

Recently, the Year-end-review of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD) was released.

• The Year-end reviews of the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW), Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways were also released.

What are the Key Initiatives/ Achievements of MoWCD?

The Organisation of Various Schemes into Three Verticals

• To ensure better monitoring and efficient implementation, all the schemes being implemented by the MowCD have been organised into three verticals:
  • Saksham Anganwadi & Poshan 2.0 for Nutrition Support for Children, Adolescent Girls and Pregnant Women & Lactating Mothers; and for Early Childhood Care & Education
  • Mission Shakti for the safety, security and empowerment of women
  • Mission Vatsalya for the protection and welfare of children with an enhanced outlay over the 15^th Finance Commission.

POSHAN Tracker

• To promote the nutritional status of women and children, a transparent and enabling environment is being created that nurtures health, wellness and immunity.
  • The Poshan Tracker application has been built on the latest technology for ensuring real-time monitoring of supplementary nutrition and provide information for prompt supervision and management of services.
• For the first time, a Migration facility for pregnant women and lactating mothers from one Anganwadi Centre (AWC) to another within and outside a State has been facilitated under this.
  • Migration facility from one category to another category of a beneficiary is also available.

POSHAN Pakhwada

• In order to ensure widespread engagement to ensure a nutrition-centric mass movement for Poshan Abhiyaan, Poshan Pakhwada was held in 2022.
  • This was brought in convergence with the Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS) and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA).
• This focussed on themes including height and weight measurement of beneficiary children up to 6 years of age at Anganwadi Centres, activities concentrated around Gender Sensitive Water Management, Anaemia and Traditional Food for healthy mothers and children, especially in Tribal Areas.

Rashtriya Poshan Maah

• During the entire month of September, 2022, the 5^th Rashtriya Poshan Maah was celebrated with Gram Panchayats as the focal point of all the activities.
• The broader themes for Poshan Maah 2022 were Mahila aur Swasthya, Bachcha aur Shiksha, Gender Sensitive Water Management and Traditional Food for Women & Children.

Mission Shakti

• Mission Shakti comprises of two sub-schemes ‘Sambal’ and ‘Samarthya’ for safety and security of women and the empowerment of women respectively.
  • Sambal Scheme: The existing schemes of One Stop Centres (OSC), Women Helplines and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) have been made part of this sub-scheme and a new component Nari Adalat has been introduced.
  • Samarthya Scheme: The existing schemes of Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), Ujjwala & Swadhar Greh (Shakti Sadan), Working Women Hostel (Sakhi Niwas), Gender Budgeting and National Crèche Scheme along with a new component of Hubs for the empowerment of women at National, State, District levels have been subsumed in this scheme.

Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY)

• The Scheme envisages providing a cash incentive amounting to Rs. 5,000/- in two installments directly to the Bank/Post Office Account of Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers (PW & LM) in Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Mode during pregnancy and lactation.
• Additionally, the scheme has been expanded to provide maternity benefits amounting to Rs.6000/-cover second child, but only if the second child is a girl child.
  • This is to discourage pre-birth sex selection. It is a measure for women's empowerment through wage compensation and the promotion of health-seeking behaviour.

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao

• The scheme is being implemented in all districts of the country through multi-sectoral intervention.
  • The Scheme has stirred up collective consciousness towards changing the mindset of the Nation towards valuing the girl child.
• This is reflected in the improvement of the Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) by 16 points at the National level, from 918 in 2014-15 to 934 in 2021-22 (Health Management Information System (HMIS), of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MH&FW)).

National Conference on Skilling in Non- Traditional Livelihood for Girls “Betiyan Bane Kushal”

• The Ministry in partnership with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and the Ministry of Minority Affairs organized an inter-ministerial conference on Non-Traditional Livelihoods (NTLs) for adolescent girls on the occasion of the International Day of the Girl Child on 11^th October 2022.
• The conference emphasized convergence between ministries and departments to ensure that girls build their skills and enter the workforce in a diverse set of professions, including Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), where girls have historically been under-represented.

One-Stop Centres

• For women affected by violence and in need of assistance, a range of integrated services is being provided under one roof, including facilitation with police, medical and legal aid and counselling and psycho-social counselling through One-Stop Centers or Sakhi Centers across States/UTs.
  • Also, emergency/non-emergency help is provided through toll-free women's helpline.

Nirbhaya Fund

• A meeting of the Empowered Committee (EC) of Officers was held in 2022 in which besides reviewing the status of implementation of earlier approved projects/ schemes, the EC had appraised more projects for funding under Nirbhaya Fund.

Mission Vatsalya

• The scheme guidelines for ‘Mission Vatsalya’ (child protection priorities)were issued in July 2022.

Juvenile Justice Amendment Act

• The Juvenile Justice Model Amendment Rules, 2022 have been notified in September, 2022 and Adoption Regulations, 2022 have also been notified. The District Magistrates (DMs) have now been made the nodal authority at District levels for all matters relating to child safety, empowerment and safety including the issuance of adoption orders.

PM CARES Fund

• The scheme for PM Cares for Children was launched in 2021 to support children who have lost both parents, single surviving parent, legal guardian or adoptive parents to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Launch of GHAR - GO Home and Re-Unite (Portal for Restoration and Repatriation of Child)

• On the occasion of World Children's Day, 20^th November 2022, the Standard operating Procedure (SoP) for reuniting children, who were traced and staying in Child Care Institutions in other District, State or from other countries was launched.
  • The aforesaid SoP called ‘Protocols for Restoration and Repatriation of Children’ was launched.
• A web portal to operationalise the protocol that ensures digital tracking and monitoring of children called GHAR was also launched.

‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’: Children Ideas, Rights & Nutrition

• The Ministry celebrated the International Women’s Day-Week from 1st to 8th March 2022 as an ‘Iconic Week’ as a part of ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’.
• On the occasion of International Women’s Day (08^th March 2022), a campaign named ‘Kanya Shiksha Pravesh Utsav’ was launched in collaboration with M/o Education and UNICEF India to bring back out-of-school adolescent girls of erstwhile Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG) scheme (11-14 years) to formal education and/or skilling system.
• The President of India conferred Nari Shakti Puraskar-2020 and 2021 to outstanding women achievers in recognition of their exceptional work towards the empowerment of women.
• Implementation of Centralized Public Grievances Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) version 7.0 was implemented and operationalized successfully in 2022.

UPSC Civil Services Examination Previous Year’s Question (PYQs):

Prelims

Q. Which of the following are the objectives of the ‘National Nutrition Mission’? (2017)

1. To create awareness relating to malnutrition among pregnant women and lactating mothers.
2. To reduce the incidence of anaemia among young children, adolescent girls and women.
3. To promote the consumption of millets, coarse cereals and unpolished rice.
4. To promote the consumption of poultry eggs.

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 1, 2 and 3 only
(c) 1, 2 and 4 only
(d) 3 and 4 only

Ans: (a)

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Mains

Q. “Empowering women is the key to control population growth”. Discuss. (2019)