Jammu and Kashmir Paraja Pati Sabha on Friday organised a one day women conference with the theme ‘Empowerment of Women’ here at PrajaPati Bhavan BC road here, in which Minister of State for Education, Mrs Priya Sethi was the Chief Guest.In her address to large number of women participants, Mrs Sethi highlighted the role of women in society and their immense contribution in nation building. She dwelt in detail about the programmes for women launched by the Union Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address gender imbalances and to create positive disposition towards girl child. She said women centric scheme of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, launched by PM in January 2015 aims to generate awareness and improving the efficiency of welfare services meant for women.
She said similarly under the Sukanya Samriddhi Account initiative, a guardian can open an account in the name of girl child with an initial deposit of Rs 1000. The scheme offers high rate of interest at 9.2% and shall benefit the girls later in their life.Mrs Sethi also spoke about the recently launched state sponsored social security schemes meant for women i.e Ladli Beti and Aasra. She said many districts in Jammu and Kashmir exhibited declining sex ratio adding that to reverse the dangerous trend, Government started the Ladli Beti Scheme in select districts of Kathua, Jammu, Samba, Budgam, Pulwama and Anantnag to create positive disposition about the girl child and to address the concerns of girl's right from birth to adulthood by providing financial security to the girls.“Under the scheme, state government will contribute Rs 1,000 per month towards the birth of every girl child with effect from April 1, 2015 for the next 14 years. Upon reaching the age of 21, the girl child would receive a sum of Rs 6.5 lakh”’ Priya said.
Similarly, She said state Government also launched 'Aasra' to provide social security cover to widows, destitute, BPL families and bread winners of such families whose annual income is less than RS.75000.The Minister said that both the Union and State Government are making concerted efforts to empower women belonging to various socio-economic strata and such efforts will be continued and given greater impetus in times to come.Mrs Sethi also spoke about the various reform measures initiated by the Government to improve quality and standard of education offered in Government schools at both the elementary school level and also in Colleges and Universities of the State.