- Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma requested Women for Integrated and Sustainable Empowerment (WISE) to share proposals for collaborating with the government
- He emphasized empowering women, enabling mothers, and assisting communities over the next 25 years
Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma has called on WISE (Women for Integrated and Sustainable Empowerment) to come up with their identified focus areas and put in proposals for working with the government.
He stressed upon making the next 25 years transformative through empowering more women, promoting maternal health, and empowering communities, while inaugurating WISE's silver jubilee celebrations at Laitumkhrah.
The CM also thanked the RNDM (Religieuses de Notre Dame des Missions) sisters for their ongoing efforts in empowering women throughout Meghalaya.
Discussing maternal health, the CM termed it as his close-to-heart mission. He reminisced that when he had taken up the office of chief minister for the first time, the maternal mortality rate in Meghalaya was a cause for concern, with institutional deliveries being less than 50 percent, which has now reached up to about 70 percent.
He noted that improving maternal health includes addressing social and economic conditions. Many adolescent mothers encounter health challenges due to closely spaced births, and social and economic empowerment is essential for addressing maternal and family health.
The CM also presented the Government of Meghalaya's flagship Mother programme - Meghalaya Outcome Transformation in Health, Education, Rural Development and Social Welfare - to improve women's and children's welfare through coordinated support across departments.
He mentioned that there has been an increase in self-help groups (SHGs) in the state from about 5,000 in 2018 to around 55,000 today, with a revolving fund that has gone up from Rs. 40 crore to Rs. 1,100 crore, which is evidence of social change being led by women in the communities.
The CM emphasized that 50 percent of Village Employment Council (VEC) posts are kept exclusively for women, with more than 3,000 VECs now headed by women.
He also talked about programmes like CM-ELEVATE and PRIME, where 60 percent of the beneficiaries are women, benefiting from more than Rs. 150 crore of government support in terms of funding, training, and equipment.
He quoted instances of women-driven economic development, such as the increase in Lakadong turmeric production from 1,000 metric tons during 2017–18 to almost 20,000 metric tons today.
.jpg "IIM – A: Nurturing Business Leaders of Tomorrow")
