Nashik: When the Zilla Parishad took the initiative to survey all the single women in the district, about one lakh single women were found in the district. Among these single women, the proportion of widowed women is the highest, and their number is 89,374. At the same time, the number of 2958 are left by husbands, 1,995 divorced women and 658 unmarried adult women in the district.
This invisible and important issue that has not been discussed in the district has come to the fore today with the efforts of Nashik Zilla Parishad Chief Executive Officer Omkar Pawar. The maximum number of single women is found in Sinnar and Igatpuri talukas, followed by Niphad and Yeola talukas. The survey is still ongoing, and the administration estimates that this number will increase.
These single women were classified as widowed, abandoned, divorced and single women. When the administration classified these women according to age group, there were 1,464 women in the very young age group of 18 to 30, 8551 single women in the age group of 31 to 40, 26,276 women in the age group of 41 to 55, and 58,694 women in the age group of 55+.
Looking at this classification, the administration has decided to make special efforts for the employment of 36,000 women below the age of 55 and has decided to design different programs regarding the health, safety and emotional and mental needs of the elderly single women.
It has been noticed that 12,565 women among these women are not yet in any self-help group. Those women will soon be included in the nearest self-help group or their separate self-help groups will be started.
The survey also studied how many children are dependent on these women. In this, the number of sons and daughters of these women who are below the age of eighteen, that is, those who are studying, is 13,434, out of which 6,171 are girls.
Pawar said that the administration has decided to focus on these children so that the children of these women get good education and do not drop out of education. He also said that action has been taken to include all these children in the childcare scheme and provide them with a scholarship of Rs. 2,250 per month.
Since employment is their rehabilitation for single women under the age of 55, employment efforts workshops will be organised in every taluka through self-help groups for these women. They will be guided and encouraged about which industries they should start.
An incentive scheme has been started from the Zilla Parishad cess fund and the Zilla Parishad will pay the interest of up to Rs. 30,000 for single women who start their own business. That is, the administration is confident that many women will start employment as these loans will be available for employment at a zero percent interest rate.
Among the employed women, the number of women working as wage earners and contract workers is significant and the administration will pay special attention to helping them start their permanent businesses.
Providing these single women with various types of documents is the first phase of this rehabilitation program. All the women will be called to the Gram Panchayat in their respective villages to ascertain which documents they do not have and proposals for those documents will be prepared. This will include all government documents from ration cards to Ayushman cards. The administration will also help women eligible for destitute pension to get that pension.
The Zilla Parishad administration has taken the role of encouraging the remarriage of single women who want to start their lives anew, but since these women have children, these women face many difficulties in remarriage. Men are not ready to marry such women.
To overcome this, if single women who have children remarry from the Zilla Parishad Cess Fund, a deposit receipt of Rs. 1 lakh each will be kept in the name of their two children from the Cess Fund, and that amount will not be withdrawn until the age of 18, the Chief Executive Officer said. Since the responsibility of education and marriage of these children is being fulfilled from this fund, he also expressed his belief that the rate of remarriage may increase.
On behalf of the Zilla Parishad, the remarriage meeting on December 14 has received thousands of responses, so plans are underway to invite those interested in marriage in stages. The single woman remarriage introduction meeting on December 14 has been postponed.
Registered men and women will be informed in the future. Therefore, it has been said that no one should come to the Zilla Parishad on December 14. Men and women interested in marriage will be invited in stages in the future, and remarriage will definitely be accelerated.
