A STUDY OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND GOVERNMENT SCHEMES FOR WIDOWS IN INDIA

In India widowhood is a very challenging state of life, it’s more than a living death. Because of dominance of religious superstitions and cultural practices, a widow is deemed as a bad omen and forced to live lonely and depressed life. Her presence is not allowed in auspicious occasions or ‘Pooja vidhi’ a widow’s health is affected due to malnutrition, poverty and lack of medical help. In this situation, our society should change its approach towards a widow. There should be strong social security measures for widows.

Considering widow’s conditions in our society, researcher tried to study challenges in front of them and also tried to study social security and government schemes for widows. This paper points out the government schemes and social security currently available to the widows in our country. There are a number of Schemes being implemented by various Ministries of the Government of India through States Governments/UT Administrations which address the common needs of widows also. While some schemes cover a broader segment of population of which widows constitute a part, there are widow specific schemes also.