Bhubaneswar: Timely intervention by authorities and social activists has prevented 141 child marriages involving mostly girls in the state during the year 2019.
This was revealed during the annual performance review meeting of Women & Child Development and Mission Shakti department held here under the chairmanship of department secretary Anu Garg here, Monday.
In Odisha, the risk of a girl being married off before her 18th birthday, has dropped significantly. The prevalence of child marriages among girls in the state was reported to be 21.3 per cent, against the national average of 26.8 per cent, whereas for boys it is only 11 per cent against the national average of 20.3 per cent.
The state government has prepared an action plan to end child marriage by 2030. The state intends to bring down incidents of child marriage among girls from 21.3 per cent to 10 per cent, and among boys from 11 per cent to 6 per cent, by 2024.
Expressing her satisfaction over the implementation of the ongoing programmes, Garg advised the departmental officers to chalk out new initiatives, action plans and innovative ideas for the coming year.
She also advised the state level as well as field officers and staff of the department to work hard for the implementation of the schemes and programmes so that, the women, children and adolescent girls of the state get maximum benefit from it.
Recent national level surveys suggest that Odisha has been consistently performing better than national average on the key nutritional outcomes.
Coverage under state government’s flagship scheme, Mamata, crossed 40 lakh beneficiaries while public works worth Rs 5000 crore has been approved for women SHGs under Mission Shakti, even as SHGs got involved in fisheries, meter reading, MDM, PDS outlets etc.
Child care institutions across the state were inspected regularly and were provided with CCTV cameras. The Chief Minister, Ministers and senior officials, during field visits & festivals, spent time with the kids. A sum of Rs 10 lakh has been given to each institution from CM’s Relief Fund.
Similarly, the government has enhanced the honorarium of Anganwadi workers and their retirement age also increased from 60 to 62 years. Odisha became one of the few states in the country to give 5 eggs per week to kids in Anganwadi centres. Not only do children aged 3-6 years get an egg, five times a week with their midday meal, eggs are also distributed as take-home ration (THR) for younger children as well as pregnant and nursing women.
To provide single window assistance to women in distress, One Stop Centres (Sakhi) were set up in each of the 30 districts of the state. Earlier, only once such Centre was there in Bhubaneswar.