Summary:
RANCHI: Chief minister Raghubar Das on Monday directed the welfare department to start beneficiary identification under the Mukhya Mantri Sukanya Yojana from January 15 to disburse the promised financial assistance under the scheme to every girl child of the ecomically weaker section.The scheme, which is aimed at women empowerment, will provide Rs 5,000 grant to a girl child at regular intervals right after birth till she attains marriageable age. It is expected to benefit around 36.57 lakh poor families in the state.While holding around four-hour-long meeting with all deputy commissioners of districts, commissioners, departmental secretaries besides senior bureaucrats at the Project Building on Monday afternoon, Das made the directive so that the benefits of the scheme can be availed at the earliest possible time.The chief minister also took stock of the ongoing schemes under Central and state governments during the meeting. Later, he issued several directives cutting across different departments to enhance their working capacities.This is the first large-scale meeting involving the whole government machinery this year and aimed at speeding up projects — both grounded or yet-to-be-grounded ahead of poll bugle for the state and parliamentary elections.To curb the issue of child marriage , Das also directed the officials concerned to launch awareness rallies apart from deploying special police officers at schools.“Deploy assistant women police in all the 203 residential Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas in the state,” Das told the state police and the education department officials, an official release said.He also asked the state police to focus on utilising funds meant for rooting out Left-wing extremism (LWE) in capacity and confidence building measures for communities.“It’s time to capitalise on the decreasing trend of Naxal activities by taking the common people on board and fulfilling their needs for roads, drinking water and streetlights among others,” Das remarked, asking the authorities concerned to focus on setting up of public-centric facilities in those areas where Naxals had huge influence earlier.“We will be making a special provision in the budget for repair rural roads this time,” the chief minister added, asking all officials (DCs, SPs and commissioners) to spend at least one day in a week interacting directly with the public by visiting both residential colonies in urban areas and in villages..