Key Details
Following the August 2026 Nari Netritwe Unnoto conclave in Kolkata, the NCW consolidated recommendations from more than 120 stakeholders into a roadmap submitted to the West Bengal Government. These are proposals for consideration, not measures already approved or funded.
Health and social protection: Consider a ₹5 lakh family health-insurance card registered in the woman’s name for families without existing cover; expand maternal care, rural diagnostics and mental-health services.
Safety and access to justice: Strengthen One Stop Centres so survivors of domestic violence can obtain coordinated medical care, counselling, legal aid and shelter support.
Education and creative work: Improve support for rural students and local artists; develop paid internships and safer workplaces for women entering creative industries.
Livelihoods: Improve institutional credit for self-help groups (SHGs), alongside digital literacy, skills training and simpler street-food-vending licences.
Local priorities: Consider a women’s development mission for North Bengal and greater representation of women farmers in Panchayati Raj Institutions.
Health Proposals Focus on Access Beyond Major Facilities
The proposed insurance card is one part of a wider set of health recommendations. The NCW also calls for village-level collection of diagnostic samples linked to district and medical-college facilities, mobile health camps, and community mental-wellness centres. It identifies particular needs among tea-garden workers, adolescents and women in rural North Bengal. The press note does not set out the proposed insurance card’s funding, eligibility rules or relationship to existing cover.
Safety Measures Link Services with Legal Awareness
Strengthening One Stop Centres would bring medical, counselling, legal and shelter support together for women affected by violence. The roadmap also calls for wider awareness of legal rights and stronger implementation of workplace sexual-harassment protections. These proposals address two different barriers: whether support exists locally and whether women can safely find and use it.
Economic Opportunity Extends Beyond SHG Credit
Better credit is intended to sit alongside skills, digital access and routes to market, particularly in remote and border areas. The NCW suggests industry-linked internships and mentorship, as well as possible SHG-run canteens in government offices. Its recommendations on women writers, folk performers and dancers treat cultural work as a question of pay, training and professional opportunity, not recognition alone.
Policy Relevance
The West Bengal Government’s decision is whether — and how — to turn this broad roadmap into prioritised, funded action across health, women and child development, education, livelihoods and local government. The most useful next step would be to identify which proposals fill gaps in existing services and who would be responsible for delivery.
The proposals’ reach would need to be assessed beyond statewide totals. Tea-garden communities, remote and border areas, and women working outside formal employment have different routes to healthcare, credit and protection. Measures of local access and use would show more than an announcement of new services alone.
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