India 2018

Welfare 565
Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal), 2012. The Juvenile
Justice (Care and Protection of Children), Amendment Bill was passed in
Parliament in August, 2011. The Ministry's mandate primarily includes
formulation of plans, policies and programmes for women and children;
enactment and amendment of legislations related to them; and overall guidance
and coordination of efforts of governmental and non-governmental
organizations working in the field of women and child development. The
Ministry's schemes and programmes play a supplementary and complementary
role to the development programmes of the Ministry.
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao is one the flagship programmes of the Government,
launched in 2015 to address the declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR) and address
other related issues of disempowerment of women. CSR is the number of girls
against 1000 boys in the age group of 0-6 years. It is a tri-ministerial, convergent
effort of Ministries of Women and Child Development, Health and Family
Welfare and Human Resource Development with focus on the following:
awareness and advocacy campaign; multi-sectoral action in select 161 districts
(low on CSR); enabling girls' education; effective enforcement of pre-conception
and pre natal diagnostic techniques (PC&PNDT) Act
The specific objectives of the scheme include preventing gender biased
sex selective elimination; ensuring survival and protection of the girl child and
ensuring education and participation of the girl child. The multi-sectoral, action
in districts lays special focus on effective implementation and monitoring of
PC&PNDT Act, promotion of early registration of pregnancy, institutional
deliveries and registration of births by the Ministry of Health and Family
Welfare; making schools girl-friendly: enrolment of girls in schools, retention
of girls in secondary schools, availability of functional toilets by the Ministry of
Human Resource Development; awareness generation, advocacy, community
mobilization and training of stakeholders, local champions, rewards to
institutions and frontline workers by the Ministry of Women and Child
Development. The scheme is envisaged to bring an improvement in sex ratio
at birth (SRB) in the short term while child sex ratio (CSR) with manifestation
of over-all development such as improved health and nutrition, gender parity
in education, better sanitation, opportunities and removal of asymmetries
between the genders is endeavored in the long term. In a short span of time,
the clarion call of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao is resonating across the country.
This programme has been successful in establishing improvement in CSR as a
national agenda. It has stirred national consciousness with the political
leadership and government, both at the central and states/UTs level owning
the initiative. Several innovative interventions have been demonstrated on
ground in the selected districts.
This has resulted in building around the increased issue of awareness,
sensitization and conscious declining CSR in the public domain. Encouraging