UTs mission without men

PUDUCHERRY: While the government is all set to implement the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW), there are concerns on how it would be carried out as a few of the departments constituted for it have non-existent members.The Puducherry government had constituted the Puducherry State Mission Authority, Puducherry State Monitoring Committee (PSMC) and Inter-departmental Committee for implementing the National Mission for Empowerment of Women. A notification regarding the same was issued on October 27.However, the 22-member mission authority, headed by Chief Minister N Rangasamy, so far has non-existent members. One of the member is Minister for Education, but there is no separate minister with education portfolio at present in the UT. Another member is chairman of State Planning Commission, which is also non-existent as Puducherry only has a Planning Board, which has the Lt Governor as the chairman. Even the post of chairperson of Puducherry Women’s Commission, a member of the authority, lies vacant.Even the 18-member PSMC, constituted with minister of welfare as chairperson, has vacant posts. The PSMC has project advisor of Puducherry State Resource Centre for Women (SRCW) as a member, but the fact is, PSRCW was initiated recently under the Department of Women and Child and is yet to be operationalised. Special Secretary Welfare G Thevaneethi Dhas said. The Ministry of Women and Child, Government of India, has sanctioned `11 lakh for the purpose which would be utilised for operationalising the PSRCW.The PSMC would be responsible for setting goals and monitoring achievements, ensure convergence of central government, local government schemes and programmes and other institutions, including State Commission for Women and Panchayat Raj Institutions, convergence with inputs taken from the State Resource Centre for Women and Crime Records Bureau. Besides in association with State Resource Centre for Women and Crime Records Bureau it will be responsible for monitoring the convergence apportion implementation of the law against women. The PSMC would also strive to work for social empowerment of women by focusing on reduction in maternal mortality rate, infant mortality rate through improved maternal and child health, nutritional gaps in gender-based literacy rates. It would also undertake effective gender budgeting, gender auditing and evaluate gender responsiveness of programes and schemes implemented by the government. Besides  the scheme would review the delivery of schemes and the factors that restrict the access of extended beneficiaries and advocate re-engineering wherever required.Besides an inter-departmental coordination committee with chief secretary as chairperson has been constituted to coordinate, oversee, review and to identify the inter-departmental issue requiring convergence in respect of each department.