Social Welfare Department, both at the Centre and in the State, have been created to attend to social and individual disorganization which needs immediate attention and prompt action. Social and individual disorganization lead to occurrence of problems like Child Labour, atrocities on women, trafficking of girl child and women etc.
The Directorate of Social Welfare was created by Govt. of Assam in the year 1960. The Directorate was made permanent with effect from 20-09-1965 and a full fledged Social Welfare Administrative Department was created on 19th September 1991.
The role and responsibilities of the Social Welfare Department are destined to witness a phenomenal expansion in the coming years due to the heightened social awareness of the problems faced by children, women and physically challenged persons. This Department has the mandate to ensure proper care of the uncared, protection of the most vulnerable sections of the society and creation of an environment which is conducive to the all round development of children, women and physically challenged persons both by taking the caring and protective hands of the Government to them and by giving intensified fillip to the non- government initiatives aimed at reaching out to them.