Beti Bachao Beti Padhao

Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (Save girl child, educate girl child) is a Government of India scheme that aims to generate awareness and improving the efficiency of welfare services meant for women. Prime Minister Modi launched the programme on January 22, 2015 from Panipat, Haryana.

• The scheme was initiated with an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore.
• According to census data, the child sex Ratio (0-6 years) in India was 927 girls per 1,000 boys in 2001, which dropped drastically to 918 girls for every 1,000 boys in 2011.
• The Government also proposed Rs 150 crore to be spent by Ministry of Home Affairs on a scheme to increase the safety of women in large cities.
• The “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” scheme will be initially implemented in 100 districts across the country, including 12 in Haryana.
• It will improve the sex-ratio as its long-term benefits.
• A reward of Rs 1 crore will be given for the “innovative” village which attains a balanced sex ratio.

Sukanya Samridhi Yojna (girl child prosperity scheme), under which girl children below 10 years will have bank accounts with more interest and income tax benefits. Parents need to deposit only Rs 1,000 at the time of her birth, followed by any amount in multiples of 100 thereafter, for the girl to get Rs 1,50,000 when she is 18 years old.

Progress:

• Taking a huge step towards gender-sensitive policing, Delhi and six other Union territories will now have 33% reservation for women in the police force at the constable to sub-inspector levels.
• The government also approved “suitable enabling provisions in the recruitment rules” relating to all Union territories.
• In Delhi Police, the move immediately opens up avenues for recruitment of nearly 8,000-9,000 women, given that there is an existing backlog of 26,000-27,000 vacancies in the force. Once this backlog is filled up, more than 800 women will be added to the force each year as a 33% component of the 2,500-2600 yearly vacancies.
• Saiha district in Mizoram selected for Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme.
• Maharashtra Government launches Bhagyashree Scheme for girl child, to be linked with Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Scheme.
• Government launches “digital gender atlas”: The atlas provides comparative analysis of individual gender-related indicators over three years and that enables a visual assessment of the change and an understanding of whether some intervention introduced in a geography at a particular point of time has worked or not.