A State-level function was organized on the occasion of International Women's Day on Sunday in Gurugram where 29 women achievers were honoured, three districts received nutrition awards and four districts were awarded for improving the sex ratio in the state.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal was chief guest, who highlighted the significant role of mother in everyone’s life and said that a mother teaches the first lesson of life to her child.
He said that a ‘Mothers for sports and fitness App’ will be launched through which the mothers would come to know about the facilities of sports, coaches available in their proximity, so that they can motivate the children to avail those facilities to become mentally and physically fit.
The venue of the programme was the auditorium of Government College Sector-14 Gurugram, from where the Chief Minister addressed all the 22 districts through video conferencing. Before his address, the Chief Minister released a booklet on ‘Poshan Pakhwara’ (Nutrition fortnight), the statewide campaign launched from Sunday which will last till March 22.
Under the campaign, the health of adolescent girls, pregnant women and children would be examined, they will be made aware about the nutritious food, health checkup camps will be organized and baseline surveys will be conducted to identify the areas having more number of women suffering from Anemia, so that those areas can be focused upon.
He also administered ‘Nutrition Oath’ to all the participants. A total of 29 women achievers from across the state were also honoured in the programme besides awarding three districts for better nutrition- Panchkula, Sirsa and Panipat and four districts of the state for improvement in sex ratio namely Ambala, Punchkula, Jhajjar and Panipat.
Speaking about the steps taken by the State Government towards women safety, the Chief Minister said that 3.90 lakh street lights would be erected as lighting provide a secure atmosphere to women folk during night hours. Two lakh CCTV cameras have already been installed and one lakh more would be installed in next two years to keep vigil through these cameras on law and order situation.
Special vehicles were being provided to girl students to ensure that they reach their educational institutions safe. Not only this, 31 new girls colleges have been opened and 9 more would be set up, so that the girl students do not have to travel more than 20 kilometers from their homes, he added.
Manohar Lal further said that it is the women and girls who play significant role in taking the culture forward.
He said that today, special Gram Sabhas were also being organized in all village panchayats to discuss the issues of women, their empowerment, health, hygiene, how to improve sex ratio and bring equality and other related issues.
Earlier, the Minister of State for Women and Child Development Kamlesh Dhanda said that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Beti Bachao, Beti Padao (B3P) campaign from Haryana in 2015, as a result of which the sex ratio at birth has now increased to 923 which was 823 in 2011.
It was informed that the phone number 112 would be made functional in a month’s time in Haryana, which would further help in women safety. In addition, 640 new PCRs and Emergency Vehicles would be provided to the police, which will enable the police to reach at the site of incident within 10 minutes time.