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Odisha doubles cash for pregnant women, announces scholarship for students
The Odisha government has also announced that annual scholarships ranging between ₹9,000 and ₹11,000 would be given to 4,50,000 undergraduate and 32,000 postgraduate students in the state
The Odisha government doubled the amount of the conditional cash transfer scheme for pregnant and lactating mothers to ₹10,000 on Tuesday, 13 years after it was launched. In what is seen as a pre-poll bonanza by the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) led by chief minister Naveen Patnaik, the government has also announced that annual scholarships ranging between ₹9,000 and ₹11,000 would be given to 4,50,000 undergraduate and 32,000 postgraduate students in state universities and government and non-government aided colleges, including aided Sanskrit colleges under the Higher Education department.
The Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said that ₹5,000 that was being given to pregnant and lactating mothers above the age of 19 years under Mamata Yojana has been doubled with retrospective effect from August 2023. The amount would be given in two instalments. The outstanding amount will be given to the beneficiaries between February 20 and 25.
The CMO also announced that mothers of 13 particularly vulnerable tribal groups will be given the money for each pregnancy. Others are given this for the first two live births. Since its launch in 2011, over 60 lakh pregnant and post-natal mothers have received over ₹2,900 crores under this scheme.
The scheme was launched to improve the health and nutrition status of pregnant and lactating mothers and their infants.
To become eligible for receiving the money, a mother must register her pregnancy at an Anganwadi center, receive iron and folic acid tablets, do at least one antenatal check-up, take tetanus vaccine, and attend prenatal counseling session prior to the childbirth.
Speaking on the scholarships at a Nua-O Fest in Jajpur on Tuesday, 5T and Nabin Odisha chairman V K Pandian said that the minimum scholarship amount under Nua-O programme for male students will be ₹9,000 per year, while female students will get ₹10,000 each annually. The students belonging to eligible SC/ST and Nirman Shramik families will get ₹10,000 (Male) and ₹11,000 (Female) per annum.
Pandian announced that Nua-O Magic Smart Cards will be given to all eligible students by August, providing additional benefits like bus/train travel, free wi-fi, access to online courses, skill development, coaching programmes, etc. based on performance and participation in various academic and extracurricular activities.
A Nua-O corpus fund of ₹300 core will be constituted from the coming academic year. Students who will excel in academic and different co-curricular activities will get higher amount as scholarship from this corpus fund.
The announcement came a day after the state cabinet decided new scheme “SWAYAM” under which 2 lakh unemployed youth in rural and urban areas in the age group of 18-35 years with no outstanding loan would get ₹1 lakh interest-free bank loan to start a new business or to expand their existing business. The state would spend ₹672 crore in next two years under the scheme.
