Beti Bachao Beti Padhao

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao: Will it abolish the orthodox mindset?

The saying goes “When you educate a man, you educate a man but when you educate a woman, you educate a generation”. Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao is the social awareness campaign making the parents celebrate the birth of a baby girl instead of getting unhappy.   

Hundreds of years have witnessed Indian families not rejoicing on the birth of girl child not only in rural areas but also in educated urban circles. On the top of it, the orthodox families used to go for female foeticide or abandoning the girl child, if at all she happened to be born. Social and family constraints did not allow the Girls to go to school or to opt for higher studies.

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Despite all the campaigning and laws framed earlier, the process continued without much awareness. However, after the new Government led by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi took over in 2014, an effective initiative with a new campaign ‘Beti bachao Beti padho’ (Save girl child, educate a girl child) has been launched by the Government of india. The social campaign aims to generate awareness and improve the efficiency of welfare services intended for girls.

The scheme was launched with an initial funding of ₹100 crores by the Government and was launched on January 22, 2015 in Panipat, Haryana as the State has very poor Child Sex Ratio (CSR). Initially the scheme was launched in hundred districts across the country and out of them 12 were from Haryana.

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme aims at making girls independent both socially and also financially through education. This approach of the Government can facilitate in generating awareness and improving the efficiency of delivery of welfare services meant for women.

Low CSR called for the launch of scheme
The Child Sex Ratio (CSR) census data for 0-6 years was 933 girls per 1,000 boys in 2001, which dropped to 918 girls for every 1,000 boys in 2011. The 2012  UNICEF report ranked India 41st among 195 countries.  The 2011 Population Census revealed that the population ratio of India in 2011 was 943 females per 1000 of males. The Sex Ratio 2011 shows an upward trend from the census 2001 data. 

Rising crimes against women
Discrimination against girl infants, for several reasons, has combined with the technology to result in a rise in abortions of foetuses identified as female during ultrasonic testing. All this is resulting in the sharp drop in female population while the crimes and sex abuses on women continued to rise

Speaking on the occasion of International Day of the Girl Child in 2014, The Prime Minister Mr Modi emphasized on eradication of Female foeticide and invited suggestions from the citizens of India on MyGov.in portal.

Selfie with Daughter: Motivating initiative
SelfieWithDaughter was promoted on social media in June 2015, which started when Sunil Jaglan the sarpanch of the village Bibipur in Haryana took a Selfie with his daughter Nandini and posted on Facebook on 9 June 2015 getting world-wide fame.

Olympics 2016 bronze medallist Sakshi Malik was appointed as brand ambassador for Beti Bachao Beti Padhao on August 26, 2016.

Benefits and Achievement of the Scheme

• The scheme aims at making girls independent both socially and also financially through education.
• Approach of the Government is to generate awareness and improve the efficiency of delivery of welfare services meant for women. 
• Government has launched ‘Sukanya Samridhi Yojana’ for the benefit of Girl child. This is the highest interest carrying scheme with 8.1% interest rate per annum and only the parents of girl child (Maximum 2 upto the age of 10 years) can open this account in the Post office and banks authorized to open PPF accounts. The maximum limit of deposit is Rs.1.50 lakhs per annum.
•  The effect of the Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao scheme is visible in a short period of 2 years of its launch. The sex ratio has crossed up to 950 females per 1000 males.
• During the last two years the ratio of women police officers has increased to 8.5% from the earlier 6 percent.
• Number of women are now joining Armed forces, becoming fighter pilots, scientists, doing research, sports, mountaineering, wrestling, journalism, engineers among others. A few of the great achievers are:

The government is giving high priority on the quality of education imparted to girl child and is encouraging parents to send their girls to school.

Hurdles in Implementation

• Unless properly executed and due awareness created, it will be difficult for the scheme to yield desired result
• Social abuses on women and orthodox trends like female foeticide, domestic violence and child marriage, Sati still making the scheme to be implemented effectively.
•  Government Machinery, police force not taking the complaints against atrocities on women seriously. This creates doubt on its effective implementation
• Despite all the campaigning, the old mind set of the people has not changed.
• The scheme requires great Civic body support to achieve the objectives of the scheme
• The dowry system in varying forms, is also one of the major obstacles in successful implementation of BBBP scheme.

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