BHUBANESWAR: The Ministry of Women and Child Development has directed the Odisha government to extend social security benefits to state and district-level contractual staff engaged under Mission Vatsalya scheme.
The benefits include employees’ provident fund and insurance among other things. The contractual staff comprise those in the state child protection society and adoption resource agency, district child protection units, child care institutions and others engaged in child welfare committees (CWCs) and juvenile justice boards (JJBs) except the chairperson and members of CWCs and JJBs.
The staff deployed under the Mission Vatsalya scheme will be covered under insurance benefits like Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana.
Implemented with a fund sharing pattern of 60:40 between the Centre and the state, the Mission Vatsalya scheme provides monthly financial assistance of Rs 4,000 to eligible children up to the age of 18.
The Juvenile Justice Act and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act form the basic legal framework for the scheme. It covers children whose mothers were either widowed, divorced or abandoned by their families besides orphans living with their extended families.
