Taking a step further to promote the interest of the girl child in the State, Punjab Government on the eve of lohri announced to celebrate the birth of girl child during the extensive week long celebrations of the festival all over the State.
All the deputy commissioners of the State have been issued directions to ensure the week long celebrations to mark lohri. The Social Security officers at all the districts have also been asked to coordinate with the local administration so that the proud parents of one or more new born girl-children could be adequately honored, said a spokesperson of the State Government.
He said that the ambitious centrally sponsored scheme namely Indira Gandhi Matratav Sahyog Yojna enriched with conditional maternity benefits has also been launched in Amritsar and Kapurthala as a pilot project.
This scheme aimed at improving nutritional status and the health of the lactating mothers in the age group of 19 years or more on the birth of two children till 6 months. The registration of the mother and child has also been made mandatory under this scheme and an amount of Rs6,000 would also be provided to them. All the necessary base line survey has been done to launch this scheme, he added.
To empower the Schedule Caste girls in the state and to uplift their educational, social and economic status, the State Government had initiated number of programs and schemes, said the spokesperson.
Under another initiative named as Shagun scheme, a budget of Rs98 crore has been earmarked for the financial year 2015-16 and Punjab Government has already provided Rs60.17 crore to 40,105 beneficiaries under Shagan Scheme.
Till September 2015, Rs41.43 crore has been transferred into accounts of 27,611 beneficiaries, whereas, in the month of October and November 2015, Rs18.74 crore has been credited into the 12,494 beneficiaries’ accounts.