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Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath has disclosed that government will soon be introducing a new health scheme, which will exclusively cater to the health care requirements of adolescent girls.
"We will soon launch a new scheme 'SABLA' for girls in the age group of 11-18 years," Tirath told reporters.
"The scheme also aims to empower them. The scheme will be launched very soon," she added. She has disclosed that Rs.45 billion has been allocated for this special scheme, which will be implemented as a part of the 11th Five Year Plan.
A national mission for empowerment of women, which will cater to all the requirements of a woman, will also be launched.
"In order to ensure holistic empowerment of women, the government has prepared a proposal to set up the NMEW. The mission will ensure convergence of various schemes and programmes for the development and welfare of the women," Tirath said.
"After consultation with the various stakeholders, the ministry has prepared a concept note and further action is being taken to formally launch the mission," she added.
The talks for developing security schemes for housewives are in progress.
"We are working on a social security scheme for housewives. Under this, we want to provide financial security to women if some problem occurs (in their marriage)," she said.
"Even though we have anti-dowry laws, parents still give dowry when they get their daughters married. We will ask them to get this insurance for their daughters in order to ensure security for them in case something unfortunate happens," Tirath said.
She said finer details of the programme are being worked out.
"It can be either a partnership of both the government and parents. We are also going to discuss the possibilities of the programme with the insurance companies. But nothing has been finalised as yet as the proposal is in the initial stages," she said.
It will take two to three months in giving the scheme final shape, she added.
"I want to make it compulsory because otherwise nobody would follow it properly," the minister said.
"The ministry has also finalised the legislation to combat the menace of sexual harassment of women at workplace after wider consultation with various sections of the society, which include a meeting with women MPs in August. The ministry is also working for re-introduction of Immoral Trafficking (Prevention ) Bill in parliament," she said.
