The Government of India is all set to expand its Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme up from the existing 161…
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Photo: IANS/File)
The Government of India is all set to expand its Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme up from the existing 161 districts to 640 districts all over the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan on March 8, the International Women’s Day, and inaugurate the pan-India expansion of the programme.
According to a statement issued by the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the Prime Minister will interact with beneficiary mothers and girl children of the programme on the occasion. He will also distribute certificates to best performing districts under the programme.
The event is organised by the Women and Child Development Department.
In another initiative, said the statement, the National Nutrition Mission would be launched nationwide by the PM from Jhunjhunu. He will launch the NNM-ICDS Common Application Software. The mission strives to reduce under-nutrition and low birth weight, bring down anaemia among young children, women and adolescent girls and to reduce the prevalence of stunting among children.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by Modi had late last year given its approval for expansion of the programme for a pan-India reach covering all the 640 districts (as per census 2011) of the country “to have a deeper positive impact on Child Sex Ratio”.
The scheme was launched on January 22, 2015, at Panipat, Haryana, as a comprehensive programme to address the declining child sex ratio (CSR) and related issues of empowerment of women over a life-cycle continuum. The CSR, defined as number of girls per 1000 boys in the age group of 0-6 years, declined sharply from 976 in 1961 to 918 in Census 2011.
Currently, the scheme is being implemented in select 161 districts, enabling girls’ education and effective enforcement of the Pre-Conception & Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC&PNDT) Act.
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