Students take a pledge to end child marriage
BERHAMPUR: The Ganjam administration has declared around one-third of its villages as being free of child marriage. This takes the total number of such villages in the district to 1,032 out of 3,250. It has also declared 140 of the 286 wards in its 18 urban local bodies (ULB)s as child-marriage free.
The district social welfare officer (DSWO) submitted the list of these villages and wards to the government on Tuesday. Officials said these were accorded the child-marriage free tag on the recommendations of the panchayat and ward-level task force committees on the prohibition of this social ill. The recommendations were duly verified by the respective block development officers (BDO)s and child marriage prohibition officers (CMPO)s.