The Honorable Prime Minister had released a new scheme called the Mahila Shakti Kendra (MSK) for the year 2017-18 up to the year of 2019-20 to encourage rural women empowerment through various steps such as community participation and creation of an environment that helps them realize their full potential. The scheme is envisioned to work on various levels such as the national and the state level. At the National level, it focuses on domain-based knowledge and at the state level through the State Resource Center for Women. These are the structures that will provide support in a technical sense to the said government on issues related to women, the District, and Block level Centers to support MSKs, and also provide a strong foundation to BBBP in 640 districts to be covered in a phased manner.
Span of coverage
The State Resource Center for Women is meant to cover all States/ Union Territories. 640 districts will be set up by District Level Center For Women (DLCW) in a phased manner. The numbers suggest that in the first year ( 2017-2018), 220 districts will be set up whereas 220 new ones will be added in the following two years of 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. The NITI Ayog identifies backward blocks that will be covered by the Block Level initiative that covers 115 such blocks.
Strategy for implementation
As the concept of Women’s Empowerment is a multi-layered concept, all the available resources from a variety of schemes/programs of the government have to be collected and branched out for the successful implementation of MSKs. Mechanisms at the national, state, district, and block levels have been provided under the Scheme. The setup will include student volunteers that will help in spreading awareness about the scheme, training and capacity building for rural women’s empowerment through block-level intervention. An interface that provides the opportunity to rural women to approach the Government will also be provided.
Deliverables of the project
- 115 Most backward districts ( 8 blacks per district) will be provided with Block Level services for empowering rural women.
- Outcome indicators will observe the percentage of women provided with government schemes/benefits/services out of total women demanding / need of such services, and the percentage of women covered in the selected blocks through awareness and outreach activities of MSK.
- District Level Center for Women (DLCW) set up in 640 districts.
- State Resource Center for Women (SRCW) was set up under the respective State Govt./UT Adm. in all States/ Union Territories.
Funding for the Scheme
The funding structure for Mahila Shakti Kendra will be in a cost-sharing pattern between the Central and State Governments in the ratio of 60:40. This ratio will become 90:10 in the case of North Eastern and the Special Category States. However, in the union territories, the STate government will have no contribution in the funding of the scheme,e and will be 100% centrally funded. All the payments to be made will be through PFMS ( Public Financial Management System) under the DBT mode i.e the Direct Transfer Mode.