Welfare Schemes for Women

Many welfare schemes for women are implemented by Government of India, State Governments and Union Territory Administrations. The details of major schemes under implementation by Ministry of Women and Child Development for the welfare of women are as under :

i. RAJIV GANDHI NATIONAL CRECHE SCHEME FOR THE CHILDREN OF WORKING MOTHERS (RGNCS) provides day care facilities to the children in the age group 0-6 years from families with monthly income of less than 12000/-. In addition to being a safe space for the children, the crèches provide services such as supplementary nutrition, pre-school education and emergency health care, etc.

ii. CENTRAL SOCIAL WELFARE BOARD: The main women welfare related schemes and programmes being implemented by CSWB are family counselling centres, awareness generation programme and condensed courses of education for women.

iii. NATIONAL MISSION FOR EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN (NMEW) is an initiative of the Government of India for empowering women holistically. It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme sanctioned in April 2011 and acts as an umbrella Mission with a mandate to strengthen inter-sectoral convergence.

iv. WORKING WOMEN’S HOSTEL (WWH) Scheme envisages provision of safe and affordable hostel accommodation to working women, single working women, women working at places away from their home-towns and for women being trained for employment.

v. SUPPORT TO TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMME (STEP) for Women was launched as a Central Sector Scheme during 1986-87. It aims at making a significant impact on women by upgrading skills for self and wage employment. The target group includes the marginalized assetless rural women and urban poor.

vi. RASHTRIYA MAHILA KOSH (RMK) with a corpus of Rs.100 crore extends micro-finance services to bring about the socio-economic upliftment of poor women.

vii. INDIRA GANDHI MATRITVA SAHYOG YOJANA (IGMSY) is a Conditional Cash Transfer scheme for pregnant and lactating (P&L) women introduced in the October 2010 to contribute to better enabling environment by providing cash incentives for improved health and nutrition to pregnant and nursing mothers.

viii. SWADHAR SCHEME: The Ministry of Women and Child Development had been administering Swadhar scheme since 2001 for Women in difficult circumstances. Under the Scheme, temporary accommodation, maintenance and rehabilitative services are provided to women and girls rendered homeless due to family discord, crime, violence, mental stress, social ostracism. Another scheme with similar objectives/target groups namely Short Stay Home (SSH) is being implemented by Central Social Welfare Board.

ix. UJJAWALA is a comprehensive scheme for prevention of trafficking and rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation.