Other States - Puducherry   

“Educate mothers on post-natal care”

— Photo: T. Singaravelou

CELEBRATIONS: Lieutenant Governor Mukut Mithi receiving roses from children at the Chidren’s Day function in Puducherry on Wednesday. Chief Minister N.Rangasamy and Social Welfare Minister M.Kandasamy, are in the picture.

PUDUCHERRY: Lieutenant Governor Mukut Mithi on Wednesday urged the Department of Women and Child Development to give greater importance to educate mothers on post-natal care with a view to ensuring that many precious young lives were saved from preventable illness.

Inaugurating the Children’s Day celebrations here, he said increasing budgetary allocations without proper analysis and study of the requirements, was not the most effective way to fight poverty. “There should be clarity on what has been achieved so far and what further needs to be done to improve education, health, use of subsidies etc.”

Mr.Mithi also stressed the need to make sure that funds were carefully targeted and reached the people who needed them most, such as women and children, to realise the objective of the 2015 global deadline set by the United Nations to half the proportion of people who suffered from poverty and hunger.

Mr.Mithi described the task of ensuring that all people had access to education for continuing human and economic development and for breaking the poverty cycle as the greatest challenge before the country. “By attaining the goal of taking education to all rural and underprivileged children in itself will turn out to be a remedy to tackle the menace of pervasive poverty and illiteracy in developing countries,” he said.

Referring to the theme for this year’s Children’s Day, “Children’s Right, India’s Might”, he said children of the underprivileged families were often compelled to take up jobs that demanded more labour than their physical endurance. The future of these children “is often bleak with least or no access to basic rights of education and health,” he added.

Introduction of nutritious meal programmes such as breakfast scheme and mid-day meal scheme and other incentives including retention scholarship, along with good quality education had become an effective incentive to the poor to keep their children in school and out of poverty in the future, he said. Mr.Mithi commended the Women and Child Development Department for the way it implemented the Integrated Child Development Services Schemes through a “strong network of 688 Anganwadi centres, to promote standard of health care and nutritional status of children and expectant and lactating mothers. The schemes had around 35,000 beneficiaries, he said.He handed over prizes to the Anganwadi children who occupied the first two places in the competitions held in connection with the Children’s Day. Chief Minister N.Rangasamy and Minister for Social Welfare M.Kandasamy highlighted various schemes implemented by the government as part of its endeavour to promote the welfare of women and children.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

‘Smart School’ concept to be extended to more government schools
Bank to sponsor education of poor children
“Educate mothers on post-natal care”
Rally taken out to mark Diabetes Day
Activists held for attempt to stage protest near prison

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu