Scheme for Adolescent girls

Adolescence is a crucial phase in the life of woman. At this stage, she stands at the threshold of adulthood. This stage is intermediary between childhood and womanhood and it is the most eventful for mental, emotional and psychological well being. The life-cycle approach for holistic child development remains unaddressed if adolescent girls are excluded from the developmental programmes aimed at human resource development.

The Adolescent Girls (AG) Scheme, implemented by the Ministry of Women and Child Development under Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), primarily aims at breaking the inter-generational life-cycle of nutritional and gender disadvantage and providing a supportive environment for self-development.

Objective

The key objective of the scheme is to facilitate, educate and empower AGs so as to enable them to become self-reliant and aware citizens. The scheme has the following objectives.

• Enable the AGs for self-development and empowerment.
• Improve their nutrition and health status.iii) Promote awareness about health, hygiene, nutrition
• Support out of school AG to successfully transition back to formal schooling or bridge learning / skill training.
• Upgrade their home-based skills and life skills.
• Provide information/guidance about existing public services such as Primary Health Centers, Rural Hospitals/CHCs, Post Office, Bank, Police Station, etc.

Coverage

The target group for the scheme covers out of school adolescent girls (AGs) in the age group of 11 to 14 years.

Scheme for Adolescent Girls was sanctioned in the year 2010 and was implemented in 205 districts across the country. Later, the expansion and universalisation of the Scheme for Adolescent Girls was done in additional 303 districts in 2017-18 and the remaining districts in 2018-19 with the simultaneous phasing out of Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY). Thus at present, all districts in the country are covered under Scheme for Adolescent Girls.

Scheme components

There are two major components under the Scheme ‐ Nutrition Component and Non Nutrition Component.

Nutrition Component

Take Home Ration or Hot Cooked Meal for 11‐14 years Out of school girls - Nutrition Provision Rs. 9.50 per day (600 calories; 18‐20 gram of protein and recommended daily intake of micronutrients per day for 300 days in a year.). The financial norms will be Rs. 9.5/- per beneficiary per day for 300 days in a year. This would be inclusive of the cost of micronutrient fortification.

Non Nutrition Component

For Out of school Adolescent Girls: (2 – 3 times a week)  of 11 ‐ 14 years

• IFA supplementation
• Health check‐up and Referral services
• Nutrition & Health Education (NHE)
• Counseling / Guidance on family welfare, ARSH, child care practices
• Life Skill Education and accessing public services

Source : Ministry of Women and Child Development