Posted on by Insights Editor
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

National Girl Child Day

Topics Covered: Issues related to Women.

National Girl Child Day:

Context:

India celebrates National Girl Child Day, an initiative of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, every year on January 24.

  • The objective is to raise awareness on the issue of declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR).
  • The celebrations will also mark the anniversary of Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme.
  • Punjab has announced January 2021 to be the “month of the girl child”. The scheme Dheeiyan Di Lohri has also been launched.

About BBBP:

  • Launch and expansion: Launched in January, 2015 at Panipat in Haryana. All India Expansion of BBBP covering all 640 districts (as per Census 2011) was launched at Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan on 8th March 2018.
  • It is a tri-ministerial effort of Ministries of Women and Child Development, Health & Family Welfare and Human Resource Development.

Implementation:

It is a Central Sector Scheme with 100% financial assistance for District level component and the fund are directly released to the DC/DM’s account for smooth operation of the Scheme.

Objectives:

  1. Main Objective of the scheme is to address the declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR) and related issues of empowerment of women over a life-cycle continuum.
  2. The specific objectives of the scheme include preventing gender biased sex selective elimination; ensuring survival and protection of the girl child and ensuring education and participation of the girl child.

Outcomes of the scheme:

  • As per the Ministry of Health, the sex ratio at birth is showing promising trends of improvement and has improved by 16 points from 918 (2014-15) to 934 (2019-20).
  • Health percentage of first trimester Antenatal Care (ANC) has shown an improving trend from 61 per cent in 2014-15 to 71 per cent in 2019-20.
  • The education gross enrolment ratio of girls in the schools at the secondary level has also improved from 77.45 per cent (2014-15) to 81.32 per cent (2018-19-provisional figures).

InstaLinks:

Prelims Link:

  1. About the National Grl Child Day.
  2. About BBBP.
  3. Objectives.
  4. Implementation.

Mains Link:

Discuss the significance of BBBP.

Sources: the Hindu.