NEW INITIATIVES


Haryana State is committed to the development of women and children and is laying a lot of emphasis on their holistic development.  Several new initiatives have been taken to improve the reach and quality of service delivery. 
 

Status of ICDS in Haryana:-
                     

1. Constitution of Village Level Committees of women & their convergence with PRIs:-  
         
                     Haryana Government has launched a number of new schemes and incentives for girls and women thus substantially augmenting the programmes already in operation.  It is now important to ensure effective delivery of these schemes.  For girls and women to take full advantage of the initiatives of the Government, it is necessary that they are aware of and participate fully in the implementation process. With this in view, the Government has set up village level committees of women to facilitate implementation of programmes pertaining to development of women & children. The village level committee comprises of all women Panches, three educated Adolescent Girls, Mahila Mandal Pradhan, a representative each of Self Help Groups, representative of war widows, social activists, school lady teacher, ANM, ASHA and Anganwadi Worker. Women Panch nominated by the Gram Panchayat heads the committee and Anganwadi Worker is the convener. Every Village in Haryana now has a Committee of women in-charge of overall development of Women & Children. About 6500 village committees have started functioning and holding their monthly meetings on notified date and venue. Approx. one lac women have been catapulted into decision  making role through this mechanism.

Village Committee convergence with  PRIs:-

The committee has been declared as a Sub Committee of the Gram Panchayat under section 22 of Gram Panchayat Act, 1994 and is thus completely aligned with PRI system. While working under overall supervision of Panchayat, it remains accountable to Gram Sabha. Committee’s  record including accounts, beneficiary data and activity books are open to public scrutiny and are required to be placed in Gram Sabha meetings.

The Committee has been entrusted with significant authority:-

The committee has been given functions, funds & functionaries. It has its own bank account to receive funds from the State  for implementation of programmes assigned to it. Important functions with regards to Women  & Child Development entrusted to Gram Sabha would be carried out by the committee. These include overall supervision of Anganwadi Centres & their activities and selection of Agnanwadi workers and Helpers.

Through this innovative model, the State has ensured that there is an effective devolution of powers and functions on the Panchayati Raj institutions and that the Panchayati Raj institutions function effectively and democratically with the support of dedicated sub committees looking after the over-all development of women and children and also receiving funds for implementing supplementary nutrition programme under ICDS besides distribution of remuneration to the Anganwadi staff. 

The Panchayat sub committees have also been entrusted with the responsibility of tracking every child in the village upto 6 years of age. The mechanism has been so devised as to capture village wise live data in respect of institutional deliveries/ home deliveries, registration of births, sex ratio, low weight babies at birth, incidence of serious illnesses and disabilities among children, complete immunization status and preparedness for school etc. Besides enabling village community to monitor its own progress on key indices, computerization of this data can enable invaluable analysis and focused interventions for development of children. The sub committee  has also been entrusted with the task of social audit of all schemes under its ambit. This would entail gathering feedback and evolving satisfaction index of the target groups of beneficiaries under various schemes.

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2. Supplementary Nutrition through women SHGs:-

Supplementary nutrition programme which is the biggest service under ICDS involving daily nutrition to pregnant women, lactating mothers and children below 6 years of age would also be managed by the Panchayat sub committee with the help of the women self help groups who take over procurement and preparation of food items by 1st January, 2007 in the entire State. This would result in income generation for over 75,000 women in the State.  It is mandatory for the sub committee to involve mothers in the process and regularly record their feed back in a register titled  ‘eka dh jk;" to this  has ended to the system of central procurement of Ready to Eat Food items w.e.f. 1.1.2007 IMPROVED THE QUALITY OF Nutrition items food, their suggestions regarding selection of recipe is considered from time to time.

Enhanced norms of SNP:-

                        Haryana has also increased nutritional entitlements w.e.f. 1st January 2007 which are now among the highest in the country.  Entitlement per child has been increased from Rs. 2/- to Rs. 3/- and for pregnant and lactating mothers and adolescent girls from Rs. 2.50 to Rs. 5/- per day. Out of this, Re 1/- per day per beneficiary is given to Self Help Group Members/ Mothers groups.

3. Sakashar Mahila Samooh (SMS):-
 

In all the schemes pertaining to development of women and children, information, education and communication (IEC) activities play an extremely central role.  However, the existing methodology of training a limited number of persons to disseminate key messages to the village community has not yielded the desired results.  It is, therefore, important that instead of a top-down approach,we switch over to a bottom-up approach in which the potential of educated girls and women in the villages is tapped to the hilt and they are used as a resource to promote awareness about key social issues and programmes.
 

            In continuation of the initiatives already taken by the State Government, it has now been decided  to form “Sakshar Mahila Samooh” i.e. a group of educated women in every village to lend the necessary resource support to the Gram Panchayat and its sub committee for effective discharge of the functions assigned to them. The sub committee, under this initiative, would organize and enroll all educated women who are atleast matriculate including school going girls at  plus  2 stage and former members of Balika  Mandals  under Kishori  Shakti  Yojna.  Sakshar Mahila Samooh (SMS) would have a Steering Committee of ten members, five being the most educated women of the village who would co-opt another five girls studying in 11th or 12th class.  In case,the total strength of SMS is less than 25 in a village, women who are atleast 8th pass would be enrolled as members. Such an organized pool of educated women and girls in the village would become an important vehicle for the village committee to generate awareness on key issues of sex ratio, literacy,  universalisation of elementary education, health and nutrition, opportunities for economic  empowerment for women, hygiene sanitation and environment and schemes run by the Government for women, girls, children and village community.The members of the Sakshar Mahila Samooh would also greatly contribute to social audit, so necessary to improve delivery. Sakshar Mahila Samooh would also play an important role in ensuring participation of the village community in Gram Sabha meetings.This would lead to active involvement of educated women and girls in the villages who have a lot of potential to contribute for the promotion of social agenda but are currently not a part of the implementation process.

 

4. Micro Credit through SMS in collaboration with Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK):-

             Haryana has not so far taken full advantage of the schemes run by Government of India to promote micro credit among women to accelerate their economic empowerment.  Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK), a fund under Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India has not been accessed by our State.  Under RMK model, financing is done primarily through NGOs which are rather scarce in our State. There are many other schemes of Government of India under which funding are done to NGOs. Sakshar Mahila Samooh of the village would be a registered society and hence function as a village NGO eligible to access finance for micro credit and various other social and financial services.  This could be a path breaking initiative where under, a section of the village community itself takes charge of the package of social and economic services for development of women in villages, thus tiding over the problem of lack of adequate number of credible NGOs in the State. 

            RMK has agreed to recognize SMS as an eligible NGO for the purpose of promoting micro credit and undertaken the responsibility of training members of SMS for this purpose.  Haryana Women Development Corporation (WDC) would be the nodal agency in this regard.  An agreement to this effect has been signed between RMK and Women Development Corporation (WDC) on 3rd January, 2007. Capacity building of 72 grass root SMS groups is under way. In the next one year, as many as 30,000 women will be imparted training on micro- credit.  NABARD has also shown interest to use SMSs for micro-credit.  This would lead to promotion of self help groups of women in a major way with strong credit linkages, hitherto missing and have the way for economic empowerment of women and thereby transformation of rural economy.

             The initiative pursuing to formation of SMS in every village is supported by the Rural Development and Panchayat Department in view of its potential to promote women empowerment and participatory governance.  Such a model will also ensure that PRIs are given funds, functions and functionaries in consonance with the spirit of the 73rd Constitutional amendment and that they are also supported by way of broad-based committees which draw not only on Gram Panchayat members but also other key stake holders and members of the village community.  This would also entail active participation of educated girls and women in taking forward the social agenda that the State has set for itself besides ensuring that a large number of schemes which have been launched for the development of women and children are delivered efficiently with optimal benefits reaching the target groups.

   All Programme Officers of ICDS have been already directed to take immediate steps to form and register SMS.  SMS have been formed & registered in 6247 villages of the State.

The Administrative Secretaries of Agriculture, Revenue, Health, Irrigation, Forests, Food & Supplies, Education, Power, Environment, Public Health, Co-operation and Rural Development Departments have also been requested to identify activities for Sakshar Mahila Samoohs (SMSs) pertaining to their departments, particularly in the following areas:-

1)      IEC activities and dissemination of information about their department’s schemes and programmes.

2)      Mobilizing increased community participation in implementation of schemes.

3)      Improvement of service delivery including maintaining vigil.

4)      Social Audit and obtaining feedback on stakeholders’ satisfaction with delivery.

5)      Village level surveys and data required by the department for focused policy interventions based on micro analysis.

       UNICEF Chief during his recent visit to the state on    18th December, 2006 lauded SMS initiative and observed that “SMS is a goldmine with infinite possibilities”.  UNICEF has shown keenness to take this initiative forward in partnership with Haryana Government.

5. Honorarium of Anganwadi Workers & Helpers:-

                       Regarding honorarium of Anganwadi Workers in Haryana State, it is mentioned that the State Government is contributing Rs. 200/- per Anganwadi Worker and Rs. 100/- per Anganwadi Helper per month over and above the rates of honorarium fixed by Govt. of India.  In addition, with effect from May, 2006 the Haryana State Govt. has also taken a decision to increase the honorarium of both Anganwadi Worker and Helper @ Rs. 100/- per month every year for the next 5 years.

  State Level Awards For Improvement In Sex Ratio
 

Decline in sex ratio has been a cause of great concern. The adverse sex ratio is a reflection of the gender disparity. Higher childhood mortality in girl children is yet another facet of the existing gender dispute and consequent adverse effect in survival.

The adverse sex ratio in Haryana has its deep roots, son preference which is implemented by social, economic and cultural factors and the perception that only a son is responsible for carrying forward the family name and occupation. Families with only girls suffer social disadvantage forcing parents to reject female child in pursuit of son. This has over the years led to low value being attached to girls, to neglect girls and to female foeticide resulting in a steady decline in sex ratio which has serious implications for society.

To combat the problem of female foeticide and infanticide, there is need to educate the community on the issue. Therefore, to tackle the declining trends of female in the sex ratio, the department has intiated the scheme under the name ‘STATE LEVEL AWARDS FOR IMPROVEMENT IN SEX RATIO’ from the year 2006-07. The prize of Rs. 5.00 lac, Rs 3.00 lac and Rs. 2.00 lac respectively will be given to the districts as standing 1st, 2nd, 3rd respectively who have shown maximum improvement in sex ratio and the amount will be spent by district administration on the welfare of women.

1. Criteria for selection of districts for the Award:

• The districts would compete for these awards under the personal leadership of the Deputy Commissioners.

• The awards will be given on the basis of data/figures on sex ratio provided by Health Department for which a performa has been devised by the Department.

• Improvements in sex ratio will be calculated  on the basis of  data as on 1st January of the year for which the award is being given and the improvements during 12 months till          31st December of the year under reference. Thus 1st January will be the benchmark for comparing improvements till the end of the calander year.

• The name of the districts who have shown maximum improvement in sex ratio will be taken from Health Department (as per enclosed performa).

• The strategies adopted by the DCs to bring improvements in sex ratio would be analyzed.

• A committee comprising of Secretary, WCD Secretary, Health and Secretary, Development of Panchayats would select /recommend for winner districts for approval of C.M.

• The award would be given in a State Level Function.

• The strategies adopted by the winning districts would be documented for the benefit of other districts.

2. Utilization of award money:

      The Award money can be utilized for the following:-

• To strengthen initiatives to tackle female foeticide.

• To launch/take forward initiatives for the promotion and development of women and girl children.

• To launch initiatives to change mind set and perception about gender and status of women in society.

• Educational Camps for awarness on declining sex ratio, care, survival, health check up of infants and pregnant women.

• Distribution of IEC material and broadcasting of educational messages of women and girl children through  electronic media like TV, radio etc. on declining sex ratio/female foeticide etc.

• Incentive to person(s) who have done outstanding work in the field of declining sex ratio/female foeticide.

• The awarded money can also be utilized to cover up the gaps of health services to be provided to pregnant women e.g. provision of transporation to pregnant women for institutional delivery in emergency/high risk pregnancy cases, provisions of supplements like IFA tablets etc. to pregnant women as prescribed by doctors.

3. Budget Estimate:

     For the financial year 2006-07, a total of Rs. 10.00 lac will be spent for giving award for improving sex ratio to three districts as per following details:-

  CEDAW

CEDAW stands for Convension on Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

                             For the purpose of the present Convention, the term ‘discrimination against women’ shall mean any distinction, exclusion, or
restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women,
irrespective of their martial status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms to the political, economic,
social, cultural, civil or any other field.                 
                                   

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For further details of the Scheme, the website www.wcd.nic.in of Women & Child Development Department, Government of India may be visited.