Guwahati:
The Assam government on Tuesday launched an ambitious scheme which targets to achieve 16 goals for women and child welfare by 2016, including reducing the infant and maternal mortality rates, improving sex ratio and improving enrollment of the girl child in the state.
The document, titled as 'Chief Minister's Vision for Women and Children: 2016' also seeks to provide 33 per cent reservation for women in all skill development programmes of the state government, besides curbing child labour and trafficking of women and children within the next four years.
"While we are marching ahead on the path of economic development, we have to remember that without taking along women and children the society cannot progress. With this vision document, we have fixed quantitative targets for development of women and children," Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said while releasing the document.
Among the major goals set by the vision document are reducing infant mortality rate to 38 per 1,000 live births, reducing maternal mortality to 210 per one lakh live births, reducing total fertility to 2.1 per cent, improving child sex ratio by 30 points to 987, reducing anemia among children by 45 per cent and achieving 100 per cent enrollment of girls up to class 8.
It also targets to bring child labourers into the educational mainstream, create women's cell in every police station, provide sanitary toilets and safe drinking water to all rural habitations and reduce stamp and registration charges.
Mr Gogoi said that even as the state has shown progress in the field of reducing mortality among women and infants and providing greater empowerment and opportunities, a lot more remains to be achieved.