PATNA: Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday announced a new scheme for the educational empowerment of women of the most downtrodden sections of the society. To be christened 'Mahadalit Mahila Akshar Anchal Yojana', the scheme will aim to make at least eight lakh Mahadalit women literate every year.
The announcement was made by the chief minister while addressing a function organized here to make Vikas Mitras aware of the various schemes for the scheduled castes and tribes. The function coincided with the birth anniversary of Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar. This scheme, which will be in addition to the centrally-sponsored 'Sakshar Bharat' scheme, will, in the long term, aim to make Mahadalit children educated.
"The scheme is in final stages (of preparation) and I have already held two rounds of meetings with officials," said Nitish and asked Vikas Mitras to join this mission. The CM recalled that the Mahila Akshar Anchal Yojana has shown very good results and of the 40 lakh women covered under the scheme, more than 35 lakh have already been made literate. This helped increase the decadal literacy growth in the state more than any other state.
Nitish pointed out that efforts have been made to enrol the out of school Mahadalit children and separate educational institutions called 'Utthan Kendras' have been opened in their localities.
He said that each Mahadalit child going to school is being given scholarship. "From the new financial year, a similar scheme has been introduced for the children of extremely backward castes. During 2010-11, Rs 456 crore was released for distribution among Mahadalit children as scholarship," he stated.
The CM also announced an increase in the monthly honorarium paid to Vikas Mitras, who serve as a bridge between the government and society. They were so far getting a monthly honorarium of Rs 4,000, which has been increased to Rs 5,000.
The government, he said, has made another move for dalit empowerment by giving them three decimals of homestead land. He asked Vikas Mitras to do a survey in their respective areas and identify the families which have still not been given land, and find out who was responsible for that.
Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi said Ambedkar had advocated that dalits be given rights of education, property and power.
"Our government has given them these rights by enhancing stipend to students, land to families and representation in panchayat and urban bodies."
Minister of SC/ST welfare department Jitan Ram Manjhi, minister of food and consumer protection Shyam Razak and secretary, SC/ST welfare department, Ravi Parmar were among other speakers.
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