Chief Minister M.K. Stalin presented the Girl Child Protection Day Awards to the best performing District Collectors at the Secretariat on Thursday.
The Collectors of Coimbatore, Thanjavur and Karur received the Award for effective implementation of girl child protection schemes. Coimbatore Collector G.S. Sameeran received a gold medal and certificate of appreciation from the Chief Minister for best performance in increasing the child sex ratio at birth in the district.
Mr. Sameeran said, “this award is a motivation for all the officials in the district as it is a team work. Child protection measures are not a one-day task. Constant intervention by the district authorities at various levels has resulted in the improvement of the child sex ratio.”
He also said constant auditing of the Infant Mortality Rate and Maternal Mortality Rate in the district through one-stop centres resulted in the improvement of child sex ratio at birth from 942 in 2020 to 956 in 2021. The child sex ratio at one year of age has improved from 941 in 2020 to 967 in 2021, he added.
District Social Welfare Officer P. Thangamani said the department conducted awareness programmes at schools, colleges and in public places to stop child marriage.
“Panchayat level committees were constituted with various stakeholders as its members for the girl child protection scheme. Because of the awareness programmes, many child marriages were stopped by the intervention of the district administration,” she added. The district administration stopped 98 child marriages in 2021 and cases were registered against 42 persons for conducting child marriages.
Thanjavur Collector Dinesh Ponraj Oliver and Karur Collector T. Prabhushankar also received silver and bronze medals respectively. P. Geetha Jeevan, Minister for Social Welfare and Women Empowerment, secretaries and other government officials were present.
