'Save girl' greeting cards for women, their newborn daughters

(With pix)Raipur, Oct 14 (PTI) In a bid to promote the girlchild, the Raigarh district administration in Chhattisgarh hascome up with a unique in...
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(With pix)Raipur, Oct 14 (PTI) In a bid to promote the girlchild, the Raigarh district administration in Chhattisgarh hascome up with a unique initiative, under which women who givebirth to girls at government hospitals, are given greetingcards that carry the message- 'Save and educate girl child'.

Besides the greeting cards, which also carry thepictures of those women and their newborn daughters, theirphotographs are also put up on the display boards named'Mahtari-Noni' (mother and girl in Chhattisgarhi dialect) atthese hospitals for a month for the people to see.

Talking to PTI, Raigarh District Collector ShammiAbidi said, "The initiative was taken up under the 'BetiBachao, Beti Padhao' (BBBP) Scheme at 62 primary/communityhealth centres in the district to encourage the birth of girlchild as well as institutional deliveries."From August this year, the district administrationstarted giving colourful and attractive greeting cards to thewomen giving birth to baby girls in these hospitals.

"The cards contain photographs of a woman and her babygirl along with message- 'Save and educate girl child'," shesaid.

Similarly, the photographs of the women and theirnewborn daughters delivered in the government hospitals arealso put up on the display boards installed on the premises,for a period of one month from the date of delivery.

For this purpose,the 'Mahtari-Noni' display boardswere created, she said.

"We have done it so that a woman, who gives birth to ababy girl feels proud. We have been receiving wonderfulresponses and we are thinking of extending the initiative toprivate hospitals too," Abidi said.

Raigarh is the only district from Chhattisgarh thatwas included in the list of 100 districts with low CSR (childsex ratio) for the implementation of BBBP Scheme in thecountry for creating awareness over the issue.

As per the official statistics, the CSR has beenimproving in Raigarh after the implementation of the BBBPscheme, while the institutional deliveries have reached up to97 per cent in the district.

According to the 2011 census, the CSR in the districtwas 947 girls for every 1,000 boys, but it declined to918:1000 in 2014-15.

After various steps taken under BBBP scheme in thepast two years, the CSR improved to 928 in 2015-16 and reached936 in 2016-17.

Similarly, the infant mortality rate (IMR) decreasedto 48 in 2016-17 from 65 in 2011, while the maternal mortalityrate (MMR) dropped to 180 from 293 during the same period.

Lauding the initiatives taken up in Raigarh, stateChief Secretary Vivek Dhand has directed to replicate it inBalod, Janjgir-Champa, Jashpur, Kabeerdham and Narayanpurdistricts in the coming days. PTI TKPNP.

This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.

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