HVK Archives: Haryana's Apni Beti Apna Dhan scheme starts paying off
Haryana's Apni Beti Apna Dhan scheme starts paying off - The Observer
Observer Political Bureau
()
December 18, 1997
Title: Haryana's Apni Beti Apna Dhan scheme starts paying off
Author: Observer Political Bureau
Publication: The Observer
Date: December 18, 1997
The little-known Apni Beti, Apna Dhan (My Daughter, My Pride)
scheme has started paying dividends in Haryana.
The monetary incentives offered to mothers and girl children,
available under the scheme, have not only improved the
respectability of both the mother and girl child but promoted
small family norm and anti-child marriage campaign acceptable
among ignorant and financially poorer families.
Not only this, the Apni Beti, Apna Dhan (ABAD) scheme has come as
a good help to the female literary campaign, even in the Muslim-
majority Mewat area of Gurgaon.
The ABAD scheme entitles the mother of a newly-born girl-child, a
'confinement dole' of Rs 500 and an Indira Vikas Patra (IVP) of
Rs 2,500 in favour of the child. The IVP is encashable only after
18 years, i. e. after the baby becomes an adult. On maturity, the
IVP amount becomes Rs 25,000.
In the intervening period, the girl child is eligible for other
incentives under the National Literacy Mission.
According to Gurgaon additional deputy commissioner Sudhir
Rajpal, "more than 2,000 mothers have benefited from the ABAD
scheme in Gurgaon alone, up to end-November, and the State
Government has issued about 1,900 IVPs to the parents of girl
children".
"According to the record of births and deaths, the female infant
mortality has registered a significant decline in Mewat and among
economically weaker sections since the introduction of the
scheme," Rajpal told this paper on Tuesday, adding, "more and
more women beneficiaries of the scheme are opting for the small
family norm, as is evident from the statistics of the district's
family welfare department."
The ABAD incentives are available only to those women who give
birth to girl children, provided the total number of children
borne by the mother does not exceed three, and the women who
undergo sterilisation immediately after the second or third
delivery even if there is no male child in the family. This,
according to Rajpal, is a "revolutionary attitudinal change, in
the backward section."
Rajpal is also glad that the "hitherto ignored Centrally-
sponsored Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas
(DWACRA) scheme has gained accessibility. Aimed at promoting
"awareness and self-sufficiency of village women. Dwacra means
formation of volunteer groups in remote areas, exclusively aimed
at promoting awareness. Each group is entitled for an annual cash
incentive between Rs 15,000-Rs 25,000. "In the current fiscal, 31
Dwacra groups 'had been formed till November, raising the number
to 388 groups in Gurgaon district," he said.
Rajpal, who is supposed to oversee various Centrally-funded
programmes in Gurgaon says following an assessment of the
Implementation of the "Training of Rural Youth in Self-
Employment" (TRYSEM), it has been decided to set up a Trysem
training complex at Farrukhnagar. He said, "there is
considerable scope of sponsoring trained malis, domestic aides
etc in the affluent families and diplomatic areas of the national
Capital. It is with this end in view that the district rural
development agency, Gurgaon,. has decided to train illiterate
village women and jobless youth as malis, domestic aides etc with
the help of the Haryana Tourism Development Corporation."
Former Gurgaon deputy commissioner S Y Quraishi had launched this
scheme but was transferred to an innocuous job before he could
even assess its execution. Rajpal and deputy commissioner
Devender Singh are for reviving this scheme.
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