Guwahati, March 27 (IANS) Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said the governance has experienced a massive overhaul in the last few years and the administration has become citizen-centric for the welfare of the people.

While interacting with a new batch of IAS officer trainees, CM Sarma mentioned in an X post, “It was a delight to hear their field experiences and aspirations. I emphasised the fact that governance has undergone a massive change and bureaucracy is required to deliver in a proactive, 24by7 citizen-centric mode. This change is visible and real, and IAS officers must get aligned to the new imperatives.”

Earlier, the CM also argued that the state administration has been working towards providing equal opportunities to women and as a result of this, women's participation in the labour force in the state is higher than the national average.

According to CM Sarma, the share of women workers in the total labour force is 52.8 per cent in rural areas and 31.5 per cent in the urban locality in Assam. The CM shared data in which it was shown that the national average of women labour force is 47.6 per cent in urban areas. The share of women in the rural labour workforce is 28 per cent -- both these figures are less than that of Assam.

Taking to X, Chief Minister Sarma wrote, “Equal Partners in growth. In Assam, due to our safe environment, empowering policies and a thrust on skilling women, their participation in the labour force has steadily increased over the years & is now above the national average at 52.8% in rural areas and 31.5% in urban areas.”

The Assam government has been running a slew of schemes targeting the upliftment of females in the state. Recently, the government launched a financial support initiative -- Nijut Moina scheme to help the education of female students in the state. The latest government initiative aims to cover 10 lakh girl students with an outlay of Rs 1,500 crore, and in the first year, over 1.6 lakh girls will get Rs 240 crore.

Speaking about the scheme, CM Sarma said, “Assam has started a big initiative by launching Nijut Moina. Under this scheme, the girl students who study at the graduation level will receive a monthly scholarship of more than Rs 1000, and those who pursue post-graduation are set to get Rs 2500 per month to bear the education expenditure. In this way, we want girl students should not depend on their parents to continue higher education.”

The Chief Minister argued that with the launch of this initiative the child marriage cases will come down in Assam. “We are anticipating that Nijut Moina will be able to eradicate the evil of child marriage from the state,” he said.

--IANS

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