New Delhi, 21 Decemnber 2021: The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has formulated a scheme “SMILE – Support for Marginalized Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise”, which includes sub scheme -‘Comprehensive Rehabilitation for Welfare of Transgender Persons’. The focus of the sub-scheme is on rehabilitation, provision of medical facilities and intervention, counseling, education, skill development, economic linkages to the transgender persons.
Ministry has initiated 12 pilot shelter homes namely ‘Garima Greh’: Shelter Home for Transgender Persons and provided financial assistance to community based organizations (CBOs) for setting up of these shelter homes. These pilot shelter homes are in States of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Odisha. The main aim of these shelter homes is to provide safe and secure shelter to Transgender persons in need. These shelter homes provide basic amenities like food, medical care, and recreational facilities and also conduct capacity-building/skill development programmes for Transgender Persons.
Skill Development training to the Transgender beneficiaries is also being conducted through PM-DAKSH – a skill development scheme of the Ministry.