Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls ‘Sabla’ launched

Chandigarh, January 22– With a view to empower adolescent girls and improve their nutritional status, Haryana Government has decided to launch a new scheme known as Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls ‘Sabla’.
While stating this here today, Haryana Women and Child Development Minister, Mrs. Geeta Bhukkal said that the scheme would exclusively cater to the nutritional, health care requirements and various skills of adolescent girls. The girls between the age group of 11-18 years would be covered under the scheme. Initially the scheme would be launched on pilot basis in six districts of Haryana namely Hisar,Ambala, Rewari, Kaithal, Yamunanagar and Rohtak.
She said that baseline survey for identification of beneficiaries has been completed and more than 3.05 lakh adolescent girls would be covered in the targeted districts. Out of them over 1.66 lakh
adolescent girls have been identified with low nutritional status and would be benefitted under the scheme.
Mrs. Bhukkal said that the scheme would focus on all out of school adolescent girls who would assemble six days a week at the Anganwadi Center (AWC). The school going girls would meet at the AWC at least twice a month and during vacations or holidays where they would receive life skills education, nutrition and health education. The Minister said that the scheme would enable the adolescent girls to be self dependent and also promote awareness among them about
health, hygiene, nutrition, adolescent reproductive and sexual health and family and child care. Apart from upgrading home based and vocational skills, the scheme would also provide information or guidance about access to education or learning the existing public services like Primary Health Centre, Community Health Centre, Post Office, Bank and Police Station, she added.
The Minister said that Haryana Government is paying attention towards the need of adolescent girls. She said that 1761 girls have been awarded under Awards for Rural Adolescent Girls Scheme.State Incentive Awards of Rs. five lakh, Rs. three lakh and Rs.two lakh are also given
to three best districts for improving sex ratio. Also, Protection-cum-Child Marriage Prohibition Officers have been appointed at district level to prevent child marriage.