Provide reservation to women in police force: Maneka

Union Minister Maneka Gandhi today urged the members of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Women and Child Development to persuade their state governments for providing 33 per cent reservation for women in police force as a measure towards controlling crime against women.
The Union Women and Child Development minister requested the members of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee including Pratima Mondal, Viplove Thakur, R Vanaroja, Kanak Lata Singh, Priyanka Singh Rawat and Bimla Kashyap Sood to ask their respective state governments to give 33 per cent reservation to women in police force.
The meeting was held to generate ideas on schemes, programmes and projects for women empowerment.

"Gandhi briefed the members about schemes and new initiatives taken by the government for women's welfare like the Health phone initiative, One Stop Centre for women affected by violence, appointing Special Police Officers(SPOs) in villages to curtail crime against women and various initiatives under Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP)," an official statement from the Ministry said.
The members of the Committee suggested that the Anganwadi workers should be trained fully in the subject of nutrition and proper accommodation should be made available to run the anganwadis, along with increasing their honorarium.
Other suggestions included holding camps at grassroots level with participation of men in schemes and programmes for women welfare and empowerment and involving anganwadi and Asha workers in the BBBP Scheme as they have the data on pregnancies in their areas.

A few members also expressed apprehension on the scaling down of the Central budget stating that the states are not likely to enhance their investment in social sector because they have their own priorities, it said.

Appreciating the initiative of SPOs, the Committee members suggested that the candidates should be given good training to make the scheme fully beneficial.
The Minister assured that under the National Nutrition Mission, anganwadis will be trained properly and given more facilities to discharge their duties.
Secretary, V Somasundaran said that the Ministry proposes to build 50,000 anganwadis during the next year with the help of Ministry of Rural Development and the Panchayats.