Wooing rural women voters ahead of elections

BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has decided to implement the bicycle scheme for girl students in a campaign mode. The decision assumes significance in view of the panchayat polls in February next year.Under this flagship programme of the State Government, girl students, studying in Class X of all Government, aided and block grant schools along with Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe boy students of 118 tribal sub-plan blocks will be given account payee cheque of `2,600 each to purchase a bicycle.A similar scheme in Bihar had paid rich dividends for the Nitish Kumar Government which was re-elected in the Assembly elections last year. The support of women voters for Nitish had increased because of the success of the scheme.The BJD Government, which is embroiled in several scams in its third term, seems to have fallen back on a similar scheme to woo the rural voters in the panchayat polls.The district collectors have been asked to issue cheques to the students in a campaign mode on the school premises in the presence of parents and people’s representatives.Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik asked the collectors to ensure that the purchase of bicycle is done within two months of the distribution of cheques to the students. They have been asked to put monitoring systems in place.The scheme will be implemented through school management and development committees. Besides, collectors will have to see to it that the scheme is implemented effectively so that there would be full enrolment and dropout of girl students is checked.Retention of girls in schools in some interior tribal schools is a problem, which also affects their overall literacy rate. In some tribal pockets, literacy rate of girls is less than 20 per cent.Besides, Naveen called for proper implementation of uniform scheme launched for all girl students and Scheduled Tribe/Scheduled Caste/Below Poverty Line (BPL) boy students. Each of the students will get four pairs of uniform at `704 per child.Sources said funds have been released to the districts for the implementation of the these two schemes. The Chief Minister asked the collectors to ensure that the supply of uniforms is done in a transparent manner through school management committees.