Saving and educating the girl child

The improvement in the overall child sex ratio from 919 during National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4 in 2015-16 to 929 in NFHS-5 in 2019-20 demonstrates that the empowerment of women through education has helped the country check the decline in Child Sex Ratio (CSR). The Beti Bachao – Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme has been playing a major role in addressing the decline, but huge funds left unspent by states also point towards the scope under the scheme for accelerating the improvement in CSR to reach the 1961 level of 976. Addressing the gaps in the implementation of the 100% central assistance scheme, pointed out by the Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment on Women will be critical to achieving the objective of BBBP, which translates to 'Save the girl child, Educate the girl child' of ending discrimination against the girl child and women. In one of its reports, the committee states that the sharp decline in CSR is associated with an intersection of various factors such as the increasing spread and misuse of technology for prenatal sex-selective elimination, changing aspirations of urban and rural societies, changes in family structures and reproductive decision making favouring a smaller family size. "This has accentuated the son preference, associated with the low status of women in society, patriarchal social norms and the disturbing pattern of gender-based violence faced by girls and women across the life cycle," reads the report presented to the parliament. The Committee found that from the inception of the scheme in 2014-15 till 2019-20, the total budgetary allocation under the BBBP scheme of Rs 848 crore of Rs 622.48 crore was released to the States but only 25.13% of the funds, i.e. Rs. 156.46 crores has been spent by the States during the period. From 2016-17, funds are being released directly to the dedicated account of the district collector/deputy commissioners which speaks volumes about the flow of funds being simple and free from administrative bottlenecks. The total amount of Rs 50 lakh is released to each district in a year in two instalments of Rs 25 lakh. The unspent amount is adjusted before the release of subsequent instalment which also implies deprivation of girl children in those districts which fail to spend the entire amount. When funds are released directly to the districts upon submission of the duly-approved district action plan, their failure to utilize the entire amount of just Rs 50 lakh is baffling. The parliamentary panel also found that out of a total of Rs 446.72 crore released during the period 2016- 2019, "a whopping 78.91% was spent only on media advocacy". The committee expressed the view that over the last six years, through focused media advocacy, BBBP has been able to capture the attention of political leadership and national consciousness towards the girl child and it is now time to focus on other verticals of the scheme. Of the total amount of Rs 50 lakh for each district, 16% is for inter-sectoral consultation/ capacity building, 50% for innovation/ awareness generation activities, 6% for monitoring and evaluation, 10% for sectoral interventions in health, 10% for sectoral interventions in education and 8% as flexi funds. Reducing the amount for the media advocacy component will make available more funds for work like ensuring functional toilets in schools which are crucial to prevent dropout of girl children. The committee observed that 94.8% of schools out of 1516797 (co-ed + girls) have girls' toilets but out of these 94.8% schools only 90.65% schools have functional girls' toilets and was of the view that lack of functional toilets in schools is the major reason for dropout of girls as toilets play an important role in creating safe and hygienic school environment, especially for girl students. Official data show that the number of out-of-school adolescent girls has steadily declined from 11.88 lakhs in 2018-19 to 5.03 lakhs in 2020-21 and a special campaign Kanya Shiksha Pravesh Utsav launched under the BBBP to re-enrol such girl children. A key recommendation made by the committee is that being the Nodal Ministry of the BBBP scheme, the Ministry of Women and Child Development must ensure that review meetings of the National Task Force, State Task Force and District Task Force are conducted following the guidelines. Ensuring that gaps that are identified in such review meetings are bridged through necessary course correction is equally important. The Ministry of Women and Child Development requesting theMinistry of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj to include the issue of declining Sex Ratio at Birth in Gram Sabha is a laudable move and needs to be vigorously pursued to review the outcomes. Achieving synergies of women empowerment programmes of different ministries calls for making the BBBP a priority scheme for implementation by all states. Educating the girl child is a crucial intervention for saving a girl child and improving CSR.