The scheme “National Mission for Empowerment of Women” is being implemented by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. It has the mandate to strengthen inter-sectoral convergence and facilitate the process of coordinating all the women’s welfare and socio-economic development programmes across Ministries and Departments.
The economic empowerment of women as envisaged under the NMEW includes:
I. Provision of skill training, technology transfer, technical support and promotion of market linkages.
II. Giving women access to social programmes and leverage funds for asset creation, which would reduce drudgery, and give them access to clean drinking water, fuel and fodder.
III. Provision of effective delivery system at the state, district and village level by strengthening delivery system through gender budgeting and preparation of gender sensitive programmes.
The other initiatives taken by the Mission are as under:
The State Resource Centre for Women (SRCW) under NMEW provides technical assistance, guidance, mentoring as also monitoring of the activities related to women. The SRCWs are mostly under State Women’s Development Organization. The primary objective of SRCW is to work for holistic empowerment of women in the state cutting across sectors.
Poorna Shakti Kendra’s (PSK) or Women Resource Centres as one stop centre for services to women were opened in 150 Gram Panchayats (GPs) to provide a platform/forum for women to come together, explore their potentials and possibilities, raise women’s awareness about their contributions to society and their social, economic and political rights, and facilitate access to schemes and entitlements. The Mission is also implementing 11 thematic convergence projects on various issues affecting women including declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR), Access to Rights, Access to Sustainable livelihoods etc. in association with Partner Ministries including Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MOPR), Ministry of Law and Justice (MOLJ), International Agencies and Civil Society Organisations (CSO) since 18th August, 2012.
So far 30 States have started SRCW to achieve empowerment of women and 21 PSKs are set up in the country. A sum of Rs.520.84 lakhs have been sanctioned for these SRCWs and Rs.308.98 lakhs have been sanctioned for these PSKs, since the inception of Mission.
Nirbhaya FundThe formulation of Scheme of Relief and Rehabilitation to victims/ survivors of rape have been reviewed, as the compensation part for rape victim has been overtaken by provision of Section 357A of the Code of Criminal Procedure which states that every State Government in co-ordination with the Central Government shall prepare a scheme for providing funds for the purpose of compensation to the women victim of crime including rape.
So far 20 states and 7 UTs have formulated the Victim Compensation Scheme. The Ministry of Women and Child Development is also administering Swadhar and Short Stay Home Schemes for rehabilitation of women in difficult circumstance including the victims of rape.
The Nirbhaya Fund is administered by Department of Economic Affairs. As informed by them, an amount of Rs. 1000.00 crore has been credited to the “Nirbhaya Fund”.
The Department of Information and Technology and Ministry of Home Affairs have sent schemes to enforce mandatory provision of SOS Alert Buttons in all the Mobiles handsets/providing SOS alert system in the existing handsets through free downloading of suitable software and backend integration of police administration to respond to distress calls in the minimum response time for funding from the Nirbhaya Fund.
Further, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has also sent a scheme of ‘Security of Women in road transport in the country’ for funding from the Nirbhaya Fund.
Ministry of Women and Child Development have also sent a programme ‘SHUBH’, which envisages vulnerability mapping, provides support for prevention focused activities such as awareness generation through sustained campaign initiatives against violence; advocacy; information dissemination regarding available services; sensitisation of caregivers; new measures for preventing violence and also replicating good practices in identified locations has been prepared for funding from the Nirbhaya Fund.
This was stated by Smt. Krishna Tirath, Minister for Women and Child Development, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha today.
