Secretary, Rural Development Department, Manish Ranjan today said that Garima Project, being run by the Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society, is making a significant contribution to make Jharkhand free from witch-killing and witch-hunt. He said that adding a chapter to make people aware of this evil practice in the curriculum of class 1 to 8 children in the State schools would be very helpful.
The Secretary was speaking in the first State level joint review meeting of Garima Project on Friday and was addressing the officials of various departments involved through video conferencing. Ranjan said that the Garima Project, being run by the JSLPS, is making a significant contribution to free it from malpractices.
The Secretary said that Garima Project would be able to work at the ground level only with the joint cooperation of all. “Elimination of witch hunting and witch evil practice is possible only with the joint efforts of both law and awareness. In the cases related to witch murder, things like mutual enmity, exorcist has been coming to the fore. It has also been used in many cases for land grabbing,” he added.
Ranjan said that we have to give equality and rights to women even in the rural areas of the State, which is present in a developed society. He said that work has been done on such a project in Mumbai also and from there this practice has been eradicated. The situation is more or less similar in the State, but due to linguistic disparities, there have been a lot of problems here.
Speaking on the occasion Chief Executive Officer, JSLPS, Nancy Sahay said that the Garima Project started in April 2020. “Its target is to eradicate complete witchcraft from the State by March 2023. The project faced a lot of difficulties due to COVID -19, but many awareness campaigns were also conducted by us at the grassroots level. The objective of this project is to save the women who are harassed by witchcraft, to create a source of income for them and to reach them at the earliest. For this, they are being linked with livelihood activity and their capacity building work is also being done,” she added.
The JSLPS CEO said that under this project, work is being done to make people aware through many programs like street play, situation drama, real time theatre, slogan writing, rally, wall writing, public learning, taking oath against witch hunting and others. Along with this, she told the roles and responsibilities of all the departments so that maximum benefit of this project can reach the people.
Addressing the gathering Director, Directorate of Information and Public Relations, Shashi Prakash Singh said that the department is working in collaboration with JSLPS to spread awareness about this by conducting IEC activities. Along with this, the department is also working on Grievance registration and their timely disposal, he added.
