Government Initiatives for Welfare of Children: UPSC Daily Important Topic 20 September 2022

Government Initiatives for Welfare of Children

✓• Mission Vatsalya: It is a scheme of Government of India to secure a healthy and happy childhood for every child in India. The Mission’s objectives are to assist the States and UTs in implementing the provisions of JJ Act, 2015 and achieve SDG goals. It will include service delivery, non-institutional community based care, emergency outreach services, training and capacity building.

✓• Mission POSHAN 2.0: Mission POSHAN has been launched to address the issue of malnutrition in children. It seeks to shift the mindset from quantitative eating to qualitative eating, so that the focus is on eating healthy food. The objective of the mission is to improve the overall health and well-being of the population by promoting good and healthy eating habits.

✓• Mission Shakti: It is a government scheme for the empowerment of women and to improve their safety and security. The mission has two components, namely Sambal and Samarthya. Sambal seeks to improve the safety and security of women by implementing One Stop Centres (OSCs), Women Helplines and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP). On the other hand, Samarthya is focused on the empowerment of women and includes Ujjwala, Swadhar Greh, Working Women’s hostel, National Creche Service and PM Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) (see inset).

✓• PM CARES for Children: PM CARES for Children has been launched in order to support the children orphaned or abandoned due to COVID. It was launched on 29 May 2021. The scheme seeks to provide support to the children by providing them education, health insurance as well as financial support for self-existence.

✓• PM Jan Arogya Yojana: Under Ayushman Bharat – PM Jan Arogya Yojana, all families are covered by health insurance of Rs. 5 lakhs for secondary and tertiary medical treatment. The scheme extends to children, identified as the beneficiaries of PM CARES for children.