To take stock of health situation of women and children in States, Minister of Woman and Child Development (WCD) Maneka Gandhi has called for a meeting of all the State WCD Ministers and chief secretaries on Wednesday.
On top of her agenda is to review the performance of States which are yet to initiate steps on registering child shelter homes to ensure good upkeep of children and transparency in adoption processes.
Maneka is also expected to take up issues of time-bound inspections of women and child homes. Also in the list is restructuring the Integrated Child Development Scheme, which takes care of health and nutrition aspects of expecting mothers and young children (aged 0-6 years). “The Government is aware that several residential child care facilities have not registered themselves despite us setting several deadlines and the States have not taken any action,” said an official from the Ministry of WCD.
“So far, the Juvenile Justice Act did not contain penalties for failure to register with the states but now we have made it mandatory for welfare of children as it will make monitoring processes better,” said the official.
Official records suggest that there are 1389 Child Care Institutions registered under this Act, which are getting financial assistance under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) but in practice the numbers of shelter homes may be over three fold.
“Once we have a list of all shelter homes for both women and children, a more definitive database can be created, which will help us formulate schemes and disburse funds systematically,” said the official.
The official said that the WCD ministry is also working towards reducing malnutrition in women and children. Official statistics show that there are around 200 districts with high malnutrition levels.
“Bihar, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Uttarakhand are among the ten States having large number of cases of malnutrition. The meeting will seek suggestions on measures to check and reverse the problem,” said the official.
“The special cards initiative, where the mother and child had to list out various health parameters was taken up as a pilot project in West Bengal and Odisha. The ministry wants it extended to all 200 districts where malnutrition is high. This will help us map the exact reasons for malnutrition and also help in addressing the problem in a scientific manner,” he said.