The Government’s sustained initiatives on education, skilling and employment of women have resulted in increased opportunities for their employment, and more and more women are now in gainful employment, working within or outside their homes. Also, past few decades have shown a rapid increase in nuclear families leading to the children of such working women now in need of day-care services.
Lack of proper day-care services is, often, a deterrent for women to go out and work. To address these difficulties faced by the working mothers in giving due child care and protection to their children, day-care crèche facilities are being provided through Palna Scheme. Crèche services formalise the child-care responsibilities hitherto considered as part of domestic work. Formalidation of care work supports the ‘decent work campaign’ to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth. This will also enable more mothers, who will be free from unpaid child-care responsibilities, to take up gainful employment.
Reorganised scheme
In 2022, the erstwhile National Creche Scheme was reorganised and renamed as Palna Scheme under the sub-scheme ‘Samarthya’ of ‘Mission Shakti’. Palna is a Centrally-sponsored scheme ensuring the participation of state/ UT Government to ensure better day-to-day monitoring and proper implementation of scheme, and is implemented with a funding ratio of 60:40 between the Centre and state governments and UTs with legislature, except North East & Special Category States, where the ratio is 90:10. For UTs without legislature, 100 per cent funding is provided by the Central Government.
The objective of the Palna scheme is to provide quality crèche facility in safe and secure environment for children (from ages six months to six years), nutritional support, health and cognitive development of children, growth monitoring and immunisation. Crèche facilities under Palna are provided to all mothers, irrespective of their employment status.
Apart from this, another objective of the component would involve monitoring compliance of the stipulations laid down in Section 11A of the Maternity Benefit Act regarding setting up of crèche facilities by the establishments. For this purpose, the states/UTs would explore the possibility of hosting an application/portal in convergence with the Labour & Employment departments of their respective states/UTs for facilitating establishments to register on the portal and furnish details in respect of the crèches set up in accordance with the Act.
Service package
The Palna component under the Mission Shakti scheme aims to deliver a comprehensive set of services to children aged six months to six years. These services are designed to support early childhood care, development, and nutrition in convergence with Mission Poshan 2.0.
The key services include: day-care facilities, including sleeping arrangements; early stimulation activities for children below three years; pre-school education for children aged three to six years; supplementary nutrition, sourced locally; growth monitoring; health checkups and immunisation support As part of enhancing access to childcare facilities, the Ministry of Labour & Employment has amended the Maternity Benefit Act to mandate all establishments with 50 or more employees to provide a crèche facility.
