Ama Odisha News

Encouraged by sharp decline in dropout among Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste girls, the Odisha government on Tuesday decided to provide a bi-cycle each to all the Class-X girl SC/ST students in the state. The state government also decided to provide a bi-cycle each to ST and SC boys in Class-X in the scheduled areas of the state, chief minister Naveen Patnaik told reporters, adding that boys up to Class-VIII in government and government-aided schools would also get free school uniform like girls in the scheduled area. About 172,000 girls are likely to benefit from the state government’s new decision.
While the dropout rate among ST girls was 37.87 per cent five years ago before launching of the free bicycle scheme, it came down to 9.72 per cent in 2010. Similarly, the dropout rate among SC girls also declined from 23.32 per cent in 2005 to 6.96 per cent in 2010, official sources said. The schemes announced today would be implemented from the next academic year, an official of the mass education department said.

While the state government is likely to spend Rs 46 crore for giving free bi-cycles to all girl students, state-owned Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) would take the financial
burden of giving bi-cycles to all ST & SC 10 class boys in scheduled areas and uniform, the sources said.There are many poor girls from general category. Free bi-cycle scheme for all girls will be helpful for many poor girls, said Dibakar Mohanty, a school teacher.