Diksha Singh Rathore writes about the need for providing adequate education to girls in the country and the new scheme launched by the Modi Government.
INTRODUCTION
India is one of those countries where females were considered to be the sacred ones but the situation has changed a lot and today we the people have become savages and destroying the very pious belief of worshiping women. We are committing many heinous crimes against our women like rape, molestation, harassment etc and not only women we people are not leaving the girls of our country, sex based abortion is pretty often in country like India but abortions are new to us, earlier the system of female infanticide was prevalent by the hands of attending mid-wife but with the enhancement of technologies our ways of killing our girls have also changed and have become more heinous. The cases are not less in number where girl foetus was flushed in the toilet or left to the dogs to eat. The girl child is not secured in our country where child sex ratio is declining at a rapid pace and that of 2011 touched a mark and gave our country a shock, it was 918 girls per 1000 boys and in 2001 it was 927 girls per 1000 boys but this is also low if we compare it to 1961 sex ratio where it was 976 girls per 1000 boys.
All this is happening in our country is an issue of serious concern, as no country will develop if the girl/women ratio is declining at such rates. They constitute fifty percent of the population and are the future of tomorrow. If we want India to grow and prosper, we need the 50 million girls those are missing from the population of India back.
Indian government has come up with many new programmes to restore the child sex ratio as it was earlier and one such programme is “BETI BACHAO, BETI PADHAO” which means “save girl child, educate girl child” launched in January 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is a social campaign which aims to generate awareness and enhance the efficiency of welfare services for girls. This campaign was launched keeping in mind the drastic decline in child sex ratio in our capital New Delhi, Punjab, Haryana where the CSR reached a minimum mark of below 800 and it was the duty of government to spread awareness in these areas to curb this embarrassing notion of Patriarchy which is not even allowing the girls of our country to live. Prior to this scheme acts such as Pre Conception Pre Natal Determination Act was passed where it was declared that the induced abortions, sex determination of foetus be restricted, the machines involved in such acts were to be confiscated, doctors doing such acts were to be punished but this PCPNDT Act did not reach the satisfactory mark, as in a country where sex based abortions and infanticides are in millions, there approx. 1000 cases are going in courts and approx. 800 machines are confiscated. The duty of the government was finished when they made such acts and policies and from there the duties of our people started but the people of our country were not that open minded to get rid of such dirty practices against the girls. Thus, it became necessary for the Government to launch campaigns like BBBP which will deal directly with the people even at grass root level to spread awareness among the people and to make them aware of all such consequences that can arise from the act of killing daughters and some of them are increase in crimes against women like- rapes, bride burning, increase in dowry, increase in sex based abortions, less sex ratio which will lead to reduction in number of brides, psychological- nutritional problems in women and many more. So this scheme of BBBP will make the reality known to the people and try to educate the society that we need the support of both men and women to develop and total progress will never happen if girls will not get education or not allowed to live.
We can try and get this success by opening new school for girls and making concessions for them and not only girls, schools should be started for women those who are drop outs or those who never went to schools. Our society needs empowerment of women and that will eventually lead to the improved status of women in society. Measures are required both from the hands of government as well as from the women.
Many other schemes of Government of India for women empowerment are-One Stop Centre Scheme
- Women Helpline Scheme
- UJJAWALA : A Comprehensive Scheme for Prevention of trafficking, Rehabilitation and Re-integration of Victims of Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation
- Working Women Hostel
- Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme For the Children of Working Mothers
- Ministry approves new projects under Ujjawala Scheme and continues existing projects
- SWADHAR Greh (A Scheme for Women in Difficult Circumstances)
- Revision under IGMSY in Accordance with National Food Security Act, 2013 in XIIth Plan
- Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP)
- NARI SHAKTI PURASKAR
- Awardees of Stree Shakti Puruskar, 2014 & Awardees of Nari Shakti Puruskar
- Awardees of Rajya Mahila Samman & Zila Mahila Samman
- Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) – A Conditional Maternity Benefit Scheme
- Mahila police Volunteers”[1]
So, it can be concluded that the need of the hour is to save our girls and to educate them. No development can be truly achieved if women are not given enough chances.
REFERENCES
[1] Govt. of India, Women Empowerment Schemes, Ministry Of Women & Child Development( Sep. 30, 2016, 11:59 PM), http://wcd.nic.in/schemes-listing/.
