Chief minister Nitish Kumar ended his online silence of almost two years by blogging about the importance of educating girls in Bihar on Thursday.
In his last entry on http://nitishspeaks.blogspot.in posted on October 10, 2011, he had written on his commitment to fight corruption. With the Lok Sabha polls approaching, Nitish’s focus appears to have shifted to a segment that has backed him strongly during polls so far — the women voters.
His latest blog on Thursday has recalled his Independence Day announcement at Gandhi Maidan this year to provide scholarship to all girls in government schools from classes I to X.
“What is significant about this decision is that schoolgirls from all sections of society regardless of caste, creed, community and economic background will benefit from it. The only criterion is that the beneficiary should be a student of a government school. That’s all,” he has written in Thursday’s blog.
Nitish has described the decision as a revolutionary step, which would give a boost to the education of girls in the state. He did not forget to mention his two pet schemes, Mukhya Mantri Balika Poshak (uniform) Yojana and Mukhya Mantri Balika Cycle Yojana, started in 2007.
He stressed that the schemes not only increased enrolment of girls in government schools in the state but also decreased the dropout rate.
On the cycle scheme for girls, Nitish wrote: “That the cycle scheme brought about a social revolution and made the cycle-riding schoolgirls a veritable mascot of Bihar, especially in the rural areas. The success of that scheme could be gauged from the fact that 9,61,109 students, including 4,92,899 girls, availed of the scheme in 2012-13.” He said the beneficiaries of the scheme increased to 47,44,966 students, including 24,57,539 girls.
Nitish has mentioned a recent study, which revealed that the state’s population has gone up by 25 per cent in the past decade and all development work and the GDP growth rate will come to a nought if we are not able to stabilise population.
The chief minister added that it made him decide to establish a high school in each panchayat.
