The State Administrative Council (SAC) which met here on Saturday under the chairmanship of Governor, Satya Pal Malik accorded sanction to the creation of one post of Director General, Women & Child Development in the Social Welfare Department.
Pertinent to mention here is that following the creation of a separate department of Women and Child Development in Government of India way back in 2006, several state governments have created separate departments to specifically look into issues related to women and child development.
Presently, the social welfare schemes in Jammu & Kashmir are looked after by two Directorates, namely, Directorate of Social Welfare Kashmir and Directorate of Social Welfare Jammu. Further, the issues related to women and child development are being addressed through the various verticals of the Social Welfare Development including Mission Directorate of ICDS, Mission Directorate of ICPS, Project Directorate of POSHAN Abhiyaan, Mission Directorate of State Resource Centre for Women Jammu and Kashmir State Council for Rehabilitation of Widows, Orphans, Handicapped and Old Persons (Victims of Militancy), Jammu and Kashmir State Women’s Development Corporation, Jammu and Kashmir State Commission for Women.
The High Court of J&K in the PIL No. 09/2013 titled ‘Court on its own Motion Vs State of J&K and Others’, asked the State Government to consider setting up of a separate department of women & child development like in other states to plan and implement programmes for children. Pursuant to the directions of the High Court issued vide order dated 14.09.2018, the Social Welfare Department decided to propose a separate Directorate of Women and Child Development to be headed by the Director General, Women and Child Development.
The post of Director General, Women and Child Development shall be created in a scale equivalent to the Super Time Scale of the Jammu & Kashmir Administrative Service and manned either by an Officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) or Jammu & Kashmir Administrative Service (JKAS) or Common Pool Cadre. Further, Mission Directorate of ICDS will continue to function as Project Director, POSHAN Abhiyaan and Mission Director ICPS, both will report to Director General, Women and Child Development.
The supporting staff of the Directorate of Women and Child Development will be made through internal adjustment/deployment.
The creation of a dedicated Department of Women & Child Development will help in evolving plans, policies, strategies and approaches for achieving desired goals with a focus on percolation of benefits to women and children, mobilization of resources and convergence of common programmes for upliftment and development of women and children. This will contribute towards robust monitoring of laws/schemes/programmes relating to women and children in the state.
