Odisha: Gajapati district administration declares 213 villages child marriage-free

BERHAMPUR: The Gajapati district administration on Friday declared 213 villages and three panchayats — Narayanpur, Puttar and Dambala — in Rayagada block as free from child marriages. Altogether 503 out of 1,534 villages are now free from child marriage in the tribal-dominated district.
Villages where no child marriage has taken place in three years and where villagers are well aware of the child marriage menace and vow to stop it are declared free of child marriage, said collector (Gajapati) Lingaraj Panda. The administration targets to make the district child-marriage free by the year-end.
The administration has taken several steps, including sensitising adolescent girls in different hostels and creating awareness in villages not to marry before 18 years. A signature campaign was launched on August 15 against child marriages, said Bikash Kumar Mohant, the coordinator, anti-child marriage.
Panda announced that the administration would felicitate grassroot-level workers, including Asha, anganwadi and health workers and others, who give prior information about child marriages, said Arun Kumar Tripathy, district child protection officer.