Central scheme for school-going unmarried girls

BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI

July 16: With polls looming large in the not too distant future, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is readying itself to tap the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes vote-bank. Evident in the announcement by the Centre on Wednesday that it has launched a Centrally-sponsored scheme called "Incentives to girls for secondary education". But the detail really lies in the fine-print as the scheme is meant largely for girls belonging to the SC/ST category.

The scheme is expected to cost the government Rs 1,556.73 crores during what remains of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-12).

Under the scheme, the government will deposit Rs 3,000 in the name of every SC/ST girl joining Class 11 in a government, government-aided or local body school.

The girls will be entitled to withdraw the amount on turning 18 provided that she has passed the Class 10 examination as a regular student.

The girls who pass Class 8 from a Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas, regardless of whether they belong to the SC/ST category, and who enrol for Class 11 in a government, government-aided or local body school from 2008-09 onwards will also be eligible to be beneficiaries of the scheme.

The government on Wednesday said, "The main objective of the scheme is to establish an enabling atmosphere to reduce the dropouts and promote the enrolment of the girl-child belonging to SC/ST communities in secondary schools and ensure their retention upto the age of 18 years."

Girls are being targeted as beneficiaries as many of them are forced to drop out of school owing to the socio-economic conditions they have to face. Many are forced to discontinue their education owing to marriage at an early age and other such reasons.

The Centre’s incentive scheme, in order to discourage early marriage of girls, will not include married girls in its ambit.

Further, a girl hoping to benefit from the scheme will have to be aged below 16 on joining Class 11.

As per the estimates of the Union ministry of human resource development, the target group belonging to the SC/ST communities during 2008-9 will be nearly 11.72 lakh girls. The number is expected to swell to 13.57 lakhs by 2011-12.

The funds for implementing the scheme will be released to the state governments in two instalments annually.

The state governments in turn will have to submit a consolidated proposal to the human resources development ministry on their funds requirement for each year.