CHANDIGARH: Haryana Social Welfare Minister Kartar Devi and Haryana Child Welfare Council vice-president Asha Hooda on Wednesday urged women to take a pledge to ensure that every girl child in their family goes to school.

Speaking at a function to launch Sakshar Mahila Samooh (SMS), a group of literate women and adolescent girls of Rasoi village in Sonepat district, they said that education was essential for women's empowerment.

Ms. Asha Hooda is the wife of Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

Ms. Kartar Devi claimed that the schemes being implemented under the guidance of Mr. Hooda to raise the educational and social status of women would also check the declining sex ratio.

She disclosed that the agreement which the Women Development Corporation signed on Wednesday with Rashtriya Mahila Kosh to implement the SMS programme would prove a milestone in further improving the socio-economic status of women in the State.

Ms. Hooda asked the women to unite and fight for their rights. Under the SMS programme, groups of women would be provided financial assistance to undertake self-employment ventures.

She also urged them to take a pledge not to let anyone indulge in female foeticide.

Commissioner and Special Secretary for Women and Child Development Anuradha Gupta also called for active participation of women in improving their own lot. She disclosed that the SMS programme would be replicated in over 6,700 villages of the State within this month. She said that Sonepat district, bordering the national Capital, was chosen as it had one of the poorest sex ratios in the country.

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