Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Thakur Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said his government was making efforts to build consensus on women’s rights in tribal areas.

During an event here on Sunday, the chief minister said the state government was giving special priority to the uplift and welfare of women and had started many welfare schemes in the last two years.

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He said that today the self-confidence of daughters has increased which reflects the changing attitude of our society.

Highlighting the efforts of Ratan Manjari of the Kinnaur district who has been fighting for women’s rights for the last many years as women in tribal areas are deprived of many rights under the law, he said, “I am in favour of giving equal rights to women as well. Depriving someone of rights is not good. Our government is trying to build consensus in this direction and after building consensus, we will not shy away from changing the law.”

He said after taking oath as chief minister, he broke the tradition of going to the Secretariat and went to the Balika Ashram. The country’s first law was made to adopt all 6,000 orphan children as ‘Children of the State’. In the second budget, a provision was made to bear the entire cost of higher education of 23 thousand children of widows till the age of 27 years.

He said under Dr. YS Parmar Student Loan Scheme, the state government is providing a loan of up to Rs. 20 lakh to meritorious students at a 1 per cent interest rate.

Sukhu appealed to the youth to change their lifestyle to live a healthy life.

He said the state government had set a target of making the state a green energy state by March 31, 2026, to protect the climate of the state. This is a futuristic vision to save the coming generations.

The work of building five Rajiv Gandhi Day Boarding Schools has started and the rest of the schools are also being constructed in a phased manner.

Sukhu said efforts are being made to make Himachal Pradesh self-reliant in the future for which everyone’s cooperation is necessary. There has been a decline in the field of education during the tenure of the previous government and efforts are being made to bring it back on track.

He felicitated 12 women of the state for their outstanding work in various fields including Anjana Vakil of Chamba district, Seema Kumar Chaudhary of Kangra district, Monika Singh of Una district, Chetna Sharma of Hamirpur, Rachna Kumari of Bilaspur district, Diksha of Mandi district, Anita Thakur of Kullu district, Rigozan Choidon of the Lahaul-Spiti district, Ratan Manjari of the Kinnaur district, Kamala Chauhan of the Shimla district, Neel Kamal of Solan district and Khushnuma of the Sirmaur district.