Recently, the draft guidelines prepared by the Ministry of Women and Child Development for the ‘Mission Vatsalya’ scheme have been sent to the states and union territories for their suggestions.
Mission Vatsalya is one of the 3 schemes including Mission Shakti and Poshan 2.0 which aim to achieve a healthy and happy childhood for every child.
Mission Vatsalya focuses on child protection services, and child welfare services. The earlier name of this scheme was ‘Child Protection Service’ scheme.
Objective of the Mission Vatsalya:
- Ensuring a healthy, happy childhood for every child in India
- To develop a sensitive, supportive and synchronous ecosystem for the development of children
- To assist the States/UTs in fulfilling the mandate of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015.
- Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Components of Mission Vatsalya:
- statutory body;
- service delivery structures;
- institutional care/services;
- non-institutional community-based care;
- Emergency outreach services through CHILDLINE or the National Helpline for Children 1098;
- Training and capacity building.
Implementation of the plan:
- Under this mission, the government plans to partner with the private sector as well as voluntary groups for this scheme to protect vulnerable children such as abandoned or missing children.
- For this, a ‘Vatsalya Portal’ will be developed where volunteers will be able to register themselves, so that they can be attached by the state and district authorities to implement various schemes.
Source – The Hindu
