The court directed the committee to prepare "a common working plan" for the welfare of widows after examining all prevailing schemes for widows and reports filed before the court by government and National Commission for Women. As per census data, the number of widows in the country was only 18.5 lakh, which was 0.7% of the total population in 2001, but in 2011, it went up to 5.6 crore, which was 4.6% of the entire population. India is the home of the largest number of widows in the world, followed by China with around five crore widows.As per census, 0.45% of the total widows are the child widows in the age group of 10-19 years. 9.0% are in the age group of 20-39 years, 32% in the age group of 40-59 years and 58% are above 60 years. It said the essential things, like food and drinking water, were not being provided to them.

Source: Times of India August 11, 2017 15:26 UTC