Announced by the President in her Budget speech, the National Mission on empowerment of women, which will be headed by the Prime Minister, seems to have hit a roadblock already, with Minister for Women and Child Development (WCD) Krishna Tirath rejecting the concept note prepared by the ministry. Interestingly, the note was earlier approved by the Prime Minister’s Office and President Pratibha Patil.

Now, claiming that the budget projected by the ministry officials is “too less”, the minister has asked for the note to be prepared once again. According to officials concerned, who are unhappy with her idea of working on it again, even the minister had earlier approved it.

“The reason for disapproving it now, therefore, seems to be unreasonable,” said an official, on condition of anonymity. The new concept note will now again go to the PMO and President, before it goes for final approval to the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC), “which means a further delay”, added the official.

Based on the recommendations by the Governors’ Committee set up by the President, the motive to establish the National Mission for empowerment of women is to ensure that benefits of all flagship programmes of the government reach women. With WCD as the nodal ministry, the mission will work on implementation of women-centric programmes under as many as 14 ministries to achieve better coordination.

The officials in their earlier concept note had projected an initial budget of Rs 25 crore for two-and-a-half years and further allocated Rs 60 crore for the next five years.

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