By PTI
NEW DELHI: Top health ministry officials suggested to a parliamentary panel examining the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill that the proposed legislation may help check infant mortality rate (IMR) and mother’s mortality rate (MMR), sources said on Monday.
Several NGOs and think-tanks on Monday deposed before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, headed by BJP MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, which is examining this bill.
Briefing the panel on the bill, top health ministry officials, including Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, clearly said that early marriage and early pregnancy adversely impact both health of mother and child, sources in the panel said.
The ministry officials were overall in favour of the bill, and also suggested that the bill may help check both IMR and MMR.
This legislation can also help check the cases of child stunting and child wasting, the sources said.
Several NGOs such as Lado Panchayat and Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation also spoke in favour of the bill before the parliamentary committee.
Similarly, Women Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry also supported the bill.
The bill was introduced by Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani amid protests by the opposition parties on December 21 last year.
She had sought that the bill be referred to a parliamentary standing committee for further scrutiny and said that the government was open to further discussion on it.
The committee examining the bill was given three-month extension in March this year.
The proposed law will apply to all communities in the country and, once enacted, will supersede existing marriage and personal laws.
Accordingly, the government will bring amendments to seven personal laws — the Indian Christian Marriage Act; the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act; the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act; the Special Marriage Act; the Hindu Marriage Act; and the Foreign Marriage Act.
