Union government has decided to dovetail the practice with the Beti Bachao scheme. Union government has decided to dovetail the practice with the Beti Bachao scheme.

The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January this year, will involve women community workers in a bid to improve the child sex ratio in the 100 gender-critical districts of the country.

After the success of a pilot project in Pali district of Rajasthan in 2011, where women volunteers proved instrumental in improving women’s access to welfare schemes, improving child sex ratio and reducing school dropout rates of girls, the Union government has decided to dovetail the practice with the Beti Bachao scheme.

Two women workers from the community will be appointed at a minimum honorarium and trained to work at the gram panchayat level in villages and ward level in urban centres in each of the 100 districts.

These are the initial focus districts for multi-sectoral intervention under the Beti Bachao scheme.

“The pilot project in Pali showed that involving women from the community as an intermediary between beneficiaries and government schemes related to health, sanitation, education or livelihood went a long way towards empowering local women. This in turn gives them a say in ensuring the safety of their girl child, both before and after birth,” said a senior official from the Women and Child Development Department.

Pali was chosen for the pilot project due to the prevalence of child marriage, purdah system, low (40 per cent) literacy rate, high dropout rates and low employment opportunities for women.

A WCD ministry report shows that in Pali, such engagement in half the district’s 320 gram panchayats was found to have increased the number of women beneficiaries in various government welfare programmes three-fold, from 42,160 in 2012-13 to 1,64,362 women in 2014-15.

Officials said that extending the scheme to the 100 districts with the least child sex ratios under the Beti Bachao scheme will mean that the volunteers will also work towards promoting institutional births and universal enrolment of girls.

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