Stitching school uniforms to empower Sangrur’s unprivileged women
SANGRUR : As many as 250 unprivileged women of rural Sangrur will make a living for themselves by stitching uniforms for school children. Stitching each uniform will help the women earn ₹600.
Earlier, contractors and shopkeepers were minting money by selling uniforms to schools but now local women will be benefited by putting in the hard work. The Sangrur administration is facilitating this process of women’s empowerment, by supplying raw material worth ₹ 1.50 crore. The education department provides ₹600 for one set of a uniform which includes a shirt, trouser, winter cap, patka, sweater, a pair of shoes and socks and salvaar/kurti for girl students.
Sangrur deputy commissioner, Jitendra Jorwal said the government is providing uniform kits to each girl and male student belonging to SC/ST/BPL category free of cost every year.
The uniform amount was being paid to schools, which used to place orders with shopkeepers through School Management Committees (SMCs).
“We have planned to create opportunities for unprivileged women by placing these orders to them. We will rope in 250 women to stitch uniforms for students,” he said.
Jorwal further informed that last year they had started an initiative ‘Pehal’ to stitch uniforms for girl students of government senior secondary school, Sangrur. Later two other government schools of Sangrur and two schools of Patiala district had also placed orders of stitching uniforms. Now, based on the success of the pilot project, all government schools will be brought under the initiative.
Additional deputy commissioner (Development), Varjeet Walia, said, “The opportunity will be provided to them under Punjab State Rural Livelihood Mission . There are around 53,000 students eligible for free uniforms in the district. These women have already got orders for 12,000 uniforms and we are likely to get orders of 8,000 more uniforms. We are also encouraging other schools to place their orders to them.” He added that a production centre is also being set up at Akalgarh village of Sunam block for this purpose. However, those who face inconvenience in reaching the centre can also stitch from their home.