Panchayats to be roped in efforts to improve child sex ratio

"We have chosen twelve districts across seven states, where robust Panchayati Raj institutions exist from where we will start our pilot project on arresting child sex ratio," WCD minister Krishna Tirath said here.

She said the project would focus on developing the capacity of district officials and involving sarpanches and others in attempts to spread awareness about the need to protect the girl child and correct the child sex ratio.

The chosen districts are Jind and Jhajjar in Haryana, Tarantaran in Punjab, Nagaur and Jaipur (Rajasthan), Surat and Mehsana (Gujarat), Nayaagarh (Odisha), Beed and Jalgaon (Maharashtra) and Jammu and Samba in (J&K).

Based on the experience of the pilot project, guidelines would be formed for expanding the scope of this programme.

The WCD minister said that the pilot project with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj was just one of the eleven thematic projects themes launched by the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) in partnerships with other agencies.

As per WCD ministry, another project titled 'Changing behaviour through communication for bringing value to girl child' had been launched in four districts of Haryana in collaboration with two organisations Breakthrough and Praxis.

A third project which aims to ensure provision of basic entitlements and services to sex workers, trans genders and other disadvantaged groups has also been launched in some districts in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. (More)