Education scheme to help SC/ST girls

A financial incentive scheme meant to retain girls for secondary education will be applicable only for scheduled castes and scheduled tribe and those finishing from Kasturba Gandhi Bal Vidyalayas.

Updated on: Jun 26, 2008, 23:59:16 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A financial incentive scheme meant to retain girls for secondary education will be applicable only for scheduled castes and scheduled tribe and those finishing from Kasturba Gandhi Bal Vidyalayas.

The Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had said that funds would not be an issue for empowering the girl child, approved the modified scheme citing financial constraints. In his 2006 budget speech, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said the scheme would cover all girls enrolling for class IX.

To his budget proposal, the HRD ministry proposed that Rs 7,736 crore would be required for a one-time deposit of Rs 3,000 in the bank accounts of all girls, returnable with interest at attaining 18 years of age provided they clear class X examinations.

But the Planning Commission provided only Rs 1,500 crore, forcing the HRD ministry to limit the scheme to SC/ST girls and Kasturba Vidyalaya graduates. The Vidyalayas are residential schools up to class VIII meant for girls from weaker sections of society.

The HRD ministry explained that SC/ST girls are the most deprived with enrolment for classes 9-12 at just 28.73 per cent and 21.95 per cent respectively compared with 35.05 per cent for all girls and 45 per cent for boys. Still, the scheme would benefit 52 lakh girls in the 11th plan, the ministry estimated. Only unmarried girls will benefit.

The Cabinet also decided to fund construction of hostels for Scheduled Tribe girls. In the case of boys, the Central government funding would be 100 per cent in naxal-affected areas and 50 per cent in others.

The Central Universities would be eligible to seek 90 per cent whereas others would be entitled to 45 per cent of the construction cost from the Central government. The Cabinet has also reduced the construction period for new hostels from five to two years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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