 "Indian Women")
With an aim to make women financially independent, the government of Chhattisgarh has taken various measures over the years. The steps taken by the state government focus on building opportunities for women to grow and creating new avenues for their personal, social, and economic development along with strengthening their access to better healthcare and education facilities.
Because of these initiatives, the state led by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has ranked first in terms of gender equality, according to the India Index report 2020-21 released by NITI Aayog.
As a result of the state government’s dedicated efforts to improve maternal and child health, the maternal mortality rate (MMR) in Chhattisgarh which was 159 between 2016 and 2018 has now come down to 137.
Chhattisgarh has made great strides in the eradication of malnutrition and anemia as well. Mukhyamantri Supashan Abhiyan was commenced on October 2, 2019, and since then 265,000 children in the state have become malnutrition free and 150,000 women have been cured of anaemia. Chhattisgarh ranks third in the country for providing Iron Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation to children, adolescents, and pregnant and lactating women under Anemia Mukt Bharat Abhiyan.
As a result of the women empowerment policies implemented in Chhattisgarh, more than 50,000 women have now become financially self-dependent and they are also contributing towards the economic progress of the state. Besides their success in the business of forest produce, rural women in the District Mineral Trust Fund Board are also preparing policies for themselves as members of the Gram Sabha. About 300 rural industrial parks have been started in the state, where women are getting good employment opportunities. In the same sequence, about 4,000 sisters have been appointed as Bank correspondents or Bank Sakhi or BC Sakhi to provide banking facilities in remote rural areas. They sit in a bank branch to support Branch Manager. Under the Chhattisgarh State Rural Livelihood Mission, bout 2,700,000 lakh women from poor families are now associated with 254,000 self-help groups.
To encourage the women groups for taking loans to conduct economic activities, the state government has waived off the previous loan of Rs 12 crore taken by the women's self-help groups. Moreover, the upper limit for the loan amount has also been increased by two to four times. The budget allocated for Mahila Kosh has also seen an increase. Previously, an annual allocation of only Rs 1-2 crore was available to Mahila Kosh, but in the year 2023-24, an annual budget of Rs 25 crore has been allocated. In the financial year 2022-23, Chhattisgarh Mahila Kosh sanctioned the loan amount of Rs 10, 70,00,000 to more than 10,500 women, which is the highest in the last 5 years. State Government is planning to implement the new Kaushalya Samridhi Yojana, under which women will be provided loans at 3 per cent interest rate on easy terms for business purposes. For this, an additional budget of Rs 25 crore has been approved.
The state government has increased the amount of honorarium for the female workers who are taking care of the health and well-being of women and children in the state. In this year's budget, the monthly honorarium of Anganwadi workers in 46,660 Anganwadi centers of the state has been increased from Rs 6,500 to Rs 10,000 per month. The honorarium of Anganwadi assistants has been increased from Rs 3,250 to Rs 5,000 per month.
