Chairing the review meeting of the works of Women, Child Development and Social Security department here on Tuesday Chief Minister Hemant Soren said that children are the future of family, State and country. Protecting children from malnutrition is the priority of the State government. To protect children from malnutrition, the department should work with complete readiness, alertness and commitment. Work has to be done towards making the State malnutrition free at any cost.
“Provide quality nutritious food to children at Anganwadi centers of the State. Implement all the schemes run by the department for children's physical and mental development with commitment. Survey and identify malnourished children and women suffering from anaemia in the State and prepare data by getting medical checkup of health workers,” he said.
The CM said that arrangements should also be made to fprovide eggs to children under the supplementary nutritional program in the Anganwadi centers of the State. “Make an action plan on providing quality nutritious food for children. Provide seasonal fruits etc to children who are vegetarian. Pregnant women, including children, should be benefited by providing nutritional supplements to midwives. Strongly implement the take home ration and hot food delivery programme,” he said.
Soren said that the common women should also avail the benefit of Pradhan Mantri Matri Vandana Yojana. Ensure that pregnant and pregnant women of all categories get maximum benefit of this scheme. For successful operation of this scheme, propagate in radio, TV channels, newspapers etc. In the meeting, Principal Secretary of the department, Avinash Kumar said that under the Prime Minister Matru Vandana Yojana, an expenditure of Rs 1627.47 lakh and Rs 2333.40 lakh in the financial year 2020-21 against the total amount of Rs 3960.87 lakh has been spent so far.
The CM directed the officials of the department to expedite the progress of the nutrition campaign scheme. In the meeting, the departmental secretary informed that under the Nutrition Campaign Scheme, a target has been set to reduce the stunting percentage from 38.4 per cent to 25 per cent among children in the age group of 0 to 6 by the year 2022. With this campaign, services are being provided in a time bound manner, mechanisms for concrete and intensive monitoring and infrastructure of interventions.
The CM said that there should be more focus on eradicating witch system. “Survey the area where there have been more incidents of witchcraft related incidents in the last 19 years and conduct awareness programs on these areas on a large scale,” he said. The departmental Principal Secretary informed that people are made aware by organizing large-scale seminars and disseminating publicity through various mediums for eradication of witch system under the Social Corruption Prevention Scheme. A “mass marriage program” is conducted under the scheme with the aim of ending dowry and curbing extravagance in marriage. Grants are also given for funeral.
The CM, while reviewing the Child Protection Scheme, directed that a model be prepared under the Child Protection Scheme in which the widowed sisters of the same village and the persons who are alone in the family to raise the orphan children of every village. By creating such models, children will get a family atmosphere. This will also help in raising children and widow sisters and individuals living alone in the family will also be linked with social security.
Detailed discussions were held for successful implementation of the Women's Helpline Scheme. The Chief Minister said that the Women's Helpline Scheme should be implemented strongly in the state.
Minister of Women, Child Development and Social Security Department, Joba Manjhi, Chief Secretary Sukhdev Singh, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Rajiv Arun Ekka, Principal Secretary of Women, Child Development and Social Security Department Avinash Kumar, Director Social Welfare Manoj Kumar, Special Secretary DK Saxena, Joint Secretary Basarat Quayum, Joint Secretary Anirudh Kumar Sinha and other officials of the concerned department were present in the meeting.