Ahmedabad, Sept 30: Gujarat government has drawn up an action plan that envisages several new schemes for women's empowerment to mark 2002-03 as the ‘year of girls education’. According to a theme paper, prepared by the government, the objective behind giving special thrust to all round development of women is ‘not just attaining gender equality but ensuring healthy and balanced growth of society as well’.
Official sources said Gujarat was perhaps the first state in the country to have created a full-fledged department of women and child welfare to boost women's empowerment programmes.
Country's first ‘gender data bank’ too has been established in the state with a view to provide all information at one place and the recently-constituted Gujarat Women's Commission would start functioning shortly, the sources said.
Women have been put on a pedestal as epitomes of 'Matrishakti' and 'Devishakti' for centuries in the country and were given the same rights and powers as men since ages, giving them the form of 'Naarayani', which the western world may never be able to visualise, chief minister Narendra Modi said.
Gujarat is on its way to achieve another success story of achieving parity between girl and boy students in formal schools, which has come down from 693:1000 in 1996-97 to 780:1000 in 2000-01. As per census 2001, the literacy rate among women is 54 per cent as against 80 per cent among men. Bureau Report