Bihar government takes initiative to improve womens' lives

PATNA: The Bihar government has formulated a comprehensive plan to improve lives of women in the state who make up nearly 50 per cent of the population.

The attempt will be made by utilising hundred per cent of budgetary allocation for schemes such as Mahila Vidyalaya, Chief Minister's Kanya Vivah scheme, Naari Shakti Yojana, Kanya Suraksha Yojana and Indira Awas Yojana.

The government has also decided to earmark funds for women for scholarships and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan.

Deputy Chief Minister-cum-Finance Minister Sushil Kumar Modi told PTI that earlier it was believed public outlays were gender-neutral but it was not correct.

Though women constitute almost half of the population, they were far behind men in all aspects of human development indicators in the state, he said.

There were 3.97 crore women as against 4.32 crore men in the state, but the female literacy was just half of the male.

The state government has made a budgetary provision of Rs 2,247.80 crore for the 10 key social sector departments out of a total provision of Rs 14,957.34 crore for the present financial year, he said.

"A separate cell was being constituted in each of the ten departments to monitor the implementation of the plan for improving quality of lives of women," Modi said.

In the 10 social sector departments provision for women benefit-oriented schemes was 15 per cent of the total budget of the departments. More

The budget for women benefit-oriented scheme was 5.83 per cent of the total budget size (Rs 38,574.12 crore) proposed for the next fiscal and 1.95 per cent of the state's gross state domestic product, Modi said.

The major gender-sensitive provisions in the budget was Rs 72 crore for C M Balika Poshak (uniform) Yojana, Rs 42.14 crore for C M Balika Cycle scheme and Rs 20 crore for C M Kanya vivah scheme, he said.

Similarly, Rs 26 crore was proposed for Kanya Suraksha Yojana, Rs 22.50 crore for Nari Shakti Yojana, Rs 5.15 crore for Swaymsidha, Rs 53.90 crore Laxhmibai Social Security scheme, Rs 13.80 crore for National Programme for Adolescent Girls Nutrition, Rs 105.89 crore for supplementary nutrition (pregnant and lactating mothers, Rs 486.98 crore for Indira Awas Yojana, Rs 14.45 crore for dular strategy and Rs 1.40 crore for new ITI for women, Modi said.

Modi said free textbooks would be provided to all girl students from class one to eight, while it has been proposed to provide uniforms to 10.29 lakh girl students between class six and eight and cycles to 2.11 lakh girl students between class nine and ten.