Educating and protecting the girl child is top priority of the Government, said Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi at the launch of a logo design competition as a part of 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' campaign today.
The campaign which will be launched by mid-August, aims at improving the declining child sex ratio (CSR) and also change mindsets towards empowering daughters through education.
The census (2011) data has revealed a declining trend in CSR between 0-6 years with an all time low of 919.
"The issue of declining CSR is a major indicator of women disempowerment as it begins before birth, manifests in gender biased sex selection and elimination and continues in various forms of discrimination towards girl child after birth in fulfilling her health, nutrition and educational needs.
"The practice of sex selective elimination of the female foetus due to easy availability and affordability of medical diagnostic tools has been a critical influencer of the skewed sex ratio", said a Ministry official.
"Further, there is little doubt that strong Socio-cultural and religious biases, preferences for sons in almost all Indian communities has also shaped societal attitudes towards girls," the official said.
The outcome of this campaign is envisaged to ensure girls are born, loved and nurtured without discrimination, educated and raised to become empowered citizens of this country with equal rights.
As for the logo, officials said that it is to be developed through crowd sourcing with the purpose of including the logo in all advertisements issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and also for mass campaign through conventional and social media.
Further, the objective is also to ensure engagementwith the youth of the country on this issue.
The President of India in his address to the Parliament this year had announced that such a campaign will be launched across the country for saving the girl child and enabling her education.
The Union Finance Minister has announced an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore for the campaign in the budget for the year 2014-15.
The 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' campaign will be a major inter-ministerial initiative of Government bringing together Ministries, Institutions and Civil societies in a rational effort to reverse the declining sex ratio.
The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development will be nodal ministry and will be assisted by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Human Resource Development and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in this endeavour.