The Government of India has been allocating significant amounts (fiscal amounts) for women centric schemes. Here are some centrally sponsored flagship schemes:
1. Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY)- This scheme is all about safe motherhood interventions and comes under the National Rural Health Mission. It's main objective is to reduce maternal and neo- natal infant mortality (0- 28 days) by promoting institutional delivery. Pregnant women from the BPL category, irrespective of age and number of children can avail this scheme.
2. Sanitease- The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports had introduced the scheme to create awareness on healthy sanitation and sanitary napkins for the girls and women of rural and urban areas. It was launched under 'Swachhagraha'. The scheme mostly aims to promote good health and menstrual hygiene of women.
3. Menstrual Hygiene Scheme- Under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, this scheme promotes menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls in the rural areas. The scheme was started in 2011, in 17 states whereby a pack of six sanitary napkins were provided to the rural adolescent girls at just Rupees 6. The objective of the scheme is to increase awareness about menstrual health and increase access to and use of high quality sanitary napkins. This scheme also taught the adolescent girls about the proper/hygienic disposal of the napkins in an environment friendly manner.
4. Intensified Mission Indradhanush 3.0 (IMI 3.0) - Our country conducted one of the world's largest vaccination programme i.e. Universal Immunisation Program (UIP), catering to the needs of children and pregnant women against 12 preventable diseases. However, it has been reported, that each year, some children and pregnant women are accidentally excluded from the programme. Thus IMI 3.0 aims to reach out to this 'unreached population' with all the available vaccines under UIP. The focus is clearly on children and pregnant women as well as migrants from distant areas who had missed their vaccine dose during Covid- 19.
It deserves mention here that the Government of India has social welfare and social security schemes for India's citizens that are funded either by the Central Government or a state government or concurrently. Schemes which are fully funded by the Central Government are referred to as 'Central Sector Schemes' (CS) while schemes mainly funded by the centre and implemented by the states are called centrally sponsored schemes (CSS). In the 2022 Union budget of India, there are 740 central sector (CS) schemes and 65 (+7+) centrally sponsored schemes (CSSs). The implementation techniques/modalities of government schemes essentially varies between schemes and locations and depends on a number of factors such as the evaluation process, awareness, accessibility, acceptability and capability for last mile implementation. Government bodies undertaking evaluations and audits include NITI Aayog, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
It must also be reiterated that in a country like ours, where crime rates against women have risen to almost astronomical proportions in the last two decades, there is a visible need for more justice oriented schemes so that every woman can live a dignified and secure life.
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