Minister Umashree lays Foundation Stone for Sakhi one-stop Centre for Women
Udupi: The foundation stone for a one-stop centre for women, Sakhi, that provides all kinds of assistance including legal, police, medical help, counselling and temporary support services to women affected by violence, was laid on Saturday, May 28 here at the State Home, Nitture.
Minister for Women and Child Welfare, and Kannada and Culture, Umashree laid the foundation stone and addressed the gathering.
In her message, Umashree said that the Siddaramaiah led Congress government has initiated very good programmes for the welfare of women. The state government has already set up special treatment units for women and children are who are victims of atrocities, at all 30 district hospitals in the state. Victims of atrocities can lodge complaints, get medical treatment, counselling and legal aid at these special units. In Udupi district, till now 93 women and children have availed help from this unit.
The state government has announced that acid attack victims will get compensation of up to Rs 20 lakh for their treatment. Acid attack victims who sustain more than 50 per cent burns will get treatment charges for plastic surgery. The victims will also get Rs 3,000 as pension per month. Earlier, the government was considering to offer treatment to victims in government hospitals. But now, the state government has extended it to private and super-specialty hospitals, she added.
The state government has started ‘Manasvini’ and ‘Maitri’ schemes under which a monthly pension of Rs 500 is given to unmarried/divorcee poor women and transgenders. The department is formulating a transgender policy and a policy for girls below 18 years in order to empower them. The state women and child development department was the first in the country to waive off loans given to women through women corporations. Loans worth about Rs 11 crore have been waived so far.
The government has also implemented the ‘Samriddhi’ scheme for street vendors. Financial assistance of Rs 10,000 will be given to street vendors to continue their business. In the last year, the government spent Rs 10 crore for this purpose. On the performance of SHGs, she said that the annual grant for SHGs has been increased from Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000. The hike in grants to SHGs would cost the state exchequer an additional Rs 60 crore, she added.
The Union government has sanctioned ‘Sakshi’, a one-stop programme for women in distress. This programme has especially been sanctioned to the district. Udupi will act as the centre of activities for all the districts in the state.
All kinds of assistance, including legal, police, medical help, counselling, temporary support services, will be provided to women in distress under the programme.
A sum of Rs 37.68 lakh has already been allotted for the purpose. The programme will start immediately with four or five staff. A sum of Rs 8.19 lakh has also been released for the payment of the staff.
Udupi MLA Pramod Madhwaraj presided over the programme. Vinay Kumar Sorake (district minister in-charge), Dinakar Babu (president of Zilla Panchayat), Veronica Cornelio (chairperson of KSDL), Meenakshi Madhava Bannaje (president CMC), Sandhya Kumari (vice president CMC), Shyamala Bhandari (member of state women commission), Yuvaraj (ex-president CMC), Priyanka Mary Francis (CEO Zilla Panchayat), Gracy Gonsalves (deputy director CWC) and others were present.