NHRC orders Raj govt to submit report on Udaan scheme irregularities in 4 months
Jaipur: The Nationwide Human Rights Fee (NHRC) has directed the Rajasthan authorities to submit a report inside 4 months on alleged irregularities within the Udaan scheme, an initiative by the Girls and Little one Growth (WCD) division that offered free sanitary napkins to women and girls.
In a letter to the WCD secretary, the NHRC mentioned the fee had obtained a grievance that the Rajasthan authorities’s Udaan scheme has been non-functional since September 2024 as a consequence of administrative delays, and consequently, over 1.23 crore beneficiaries have been denied entry to the important service.
“This interruption poses a critical violation of girls’s basic rights to well being, hygiene, and dignity. The allegation made within the grievance prima facie appears to be critical violations of the human rights of the victims,” the letter learn.
A bench of the NHRC, presided over by Justice Priyank Kanoongo, ordered the Rajasthan WCD division to “get the allegations made within the grievance inquired into and submit a report inside 4 weeks of receiving the Fee’s discover.”
In response to officers from the WCD division, the Udaan scheme, which receives about ₹290 crore yearly, has been fully halted since September 2024 as a consequence of a delay within the tender course of between the Rajasthan Medical Providers Company Restricted (RMSCL) and the WCD.
Underneath the scheme, launched in 2021, the Rajasthan authorities have distributed sanitary napkins to over 1.23 crore women and girls each month via 99,776 centres throughout the state. “Every beneficiary receives 12 napkins per thirty days,” an official from the WCD division mentioned.
The very best distribution was recorded at Anganwadi centres in 2023, which catered to 95.58 lakh girls, adopted by higher main, secondary, and senior secondary faculties with 23.05 lakh beneficiaries. Moreover, 2.38 lakh faculty college students underneath the commissionerate of school training and 23,961 girls underneath the division of Social Justice and Empowerment additionally obtained the profit.
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HT reported in April that the WCD had written a letter to RMSCL saying, “The final buy order underneath the Udaan Scheme was issued by RMSCL in July 2024. Since then, no new provide orders have been issued by RMSCL to the respective beneficiaries. Because of this, primarily based on the estimated demand from July 2024 to March 2025, there was no provide of sanitary napkins, resulting in a nine-month provide hole.”
“As a result of lack of adequate cupboard space at distribution centres and the chance of inventory deterioration from oversupply past the beneficiaries’ month-to-month wants, it has been determined to think about the doable provide hole from July 2024 to March 2025 as a reference level. Accordingly, maintaining in view the sooner demand submitted by the division, it has been determined on the acceptable stage to acquire the provision of sanitary napkins from RMSCL for the primary schedule of the brand new monetary 12 months 2025–26, as per the departmental plan and district-level necessities,” it added.
The division has initiated the method of amassing demand for the primary schedule of the monetary 12 months 2025–26. The compiled demand will quickly be offered to RMSCL in order that buy orders for FY 2025–26 might be issued primarily based on the brand new demand underneath the departmental scheme.
