Vocational Skill Training, Special cell for widows at state commission for women : Haryana CM

Gurugram : In a bid to provide better facilities and security to women, the state government made several announcements on Monday. These include a separate cell for widows at state women commission, increased monthly pension, grace marking in government jobs, etc.

Vocational skills training to 30,000 impoverished widows will be provided through a partnership with The Loomba Foundation and Rotary India Literacy Mission. UK’s former First Lady Cherie Blair CBE QC, who visited Gurugram on Monday said that “the objective of the partnership project is to empower 1,000 widows in each of the 30 states for 3 to 6 months in different industries like tailoring, sewing, hair and style etc. Also, around 2,000 children of poor widows in India will be educated under the program”.

Chief minister Manohar Lal, who was present at the event, announced that in Haryana, by the end of this year, a separate cell will be set up for the widows at Haryana State Commission for Women. The Cell will facilitate women in resolving their issues on priority and ensuring that the problems do not re-occur.

Also, monthly pension for widows in Haryana will be increased starting next year. At present, around 6 lakh widows avail pension from the state government. An amount of Rs 1,600 per month is paid to the widows. Those with children below the age of 21 years are also given an assistance of Rs 700 per month for educating upto two children. On Monday, chief minister Manohar Lal announced that the widow pension in Haryana will be increased to Rs 1,800 per month from January 1, 2018. Also, from the next year, i.e. from January 1, 2019, the pension will be increased to Rs 2,000 per month.

Besides this, a special weightage of 5 percent marks will be given to widow applicants. The decision was made in the last cabinet meeting on November 21. The leverage will be given in the government jobs in which recruitments will be made by the Haryana Staff Selection Commission.

The same weightage will also be available for the children who lost their father before attaining the age of 15 years. This will enormously help the widows and fatherless children in getting jobs. Notably. In last three years, 116 dependents of martyrs got employment in Haryana. These included 31 widows, 27 daughters and 89 sons. The weightage will help more martyrs dependents in getting the jobs. Till now such a weightage was given only to Anganwadi Workers and Helpers.

Earlier from November 1 this year, the state government has enhanced the pension of widows of veterans of world war II from Rs 4000 to Rs 10,000 per month. Around 5,000 war widows will be benefited by this. Also, a monthly pension of Rs 10,000 per month have been introduced for widows of persons who participated in Hindi struggle of 1957, which led to carving of Haryana as a separate state.

Note: News shared for public awareness with reference from the information provided at online news portals.