National Girl Child Day to be celebrated on January 24th every year

January 24th will be celebrated as National Girl Child Day every year to create awareness about welfare and empowerment of girl child. This was announced by Smt. Renuka Chowdhury, Minister for Women and Child Development here today. She said that to commemorate the occasion a number of programmes would be organized from the day to culminate on 8th March, International Women's Day.

Releasing a special logo for the National Girl Child Day, Smt. Renuka Chowdhury said that empowerment of girls in real sense would change the face of society. Educated and healthy girls can play a very important role in improving the over all indicators of the development. A number of schemes and programmes have recently been launched by the Government but these would yield desired results only when consciousness of the society is raised to treat the girl child as valued asset, she asserted.

Highlighting the initiatives taken by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the Minister said that Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY), which aims to empower adolescent girls, has been recently restructured. A separate programme 'National Nutritional Programme for Adolescent Girls' (NPAG) is also being run to provide additional nutrition to underweight girls. The Government has also initiated 'Dhanlakshmi' a Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme for girl Child with Insurance cover in select districts of seven states which will be expended other parts of the country very soon. A comprehensive scheme, 'Ujjawala' has also been launched recently for prevention of trafficking and for rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration of trafficked victims. Beside this, Short Stay Homes for women and girls have also been set up to provide shelter and other facilities for women and girl child in difficult circumstances, she added.

On the occasion, Smt. Chowdhury also launched projects for vocational training and skill upgradation for groups of Adolescent Boys and Girls vulnerable to trafficking, partnered by Appparel Export Promotion council, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes and Joint Women's Programme. Vocational Training and skill upgradation for women self help groups from vulnerable communities in Haryana and training in para-medial care for economically weaker women partnered by industrial organization were also launched by the Minister.

Later in the evening today, the Minister interacted National Bravery Award winning children at her residence. Felicitating the children, she said that they have set outstanding examples to follow by others. She wished them bright future and presented gifts.

Source : Press Information Bureau

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