In Arunachal Pradesh, the BJP’s cadre base has touched nearly a lakh and half; the party has been in power for nearly a year –first as part of alliance government and now on its own but despite lapse of 12 month since coming to power in the state and more than two years since launch of ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his vision is yet to be shared either by the party workers or government writes Chief Reporter, Eastern Sentinel, Jackson Tayeng.

       Two years ago, on 22 January 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi started a nationwide social campaign, ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ in order to eliminate social challenges on account of girl child; and to support the campaign he launched ‘Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY).  As per national data, in less than two months of its launch, as many as 1.80 lakh accounts were opened under SSY in the country.

Basically the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana scheme has been launched to offer a means of saving and providing financial security to the girl child in every family. The money saved through this scheme is to provide for higher education and for her wedding expenses. Since then, SSY has been rated as the most well-accepted and beneficial scheme for the girl child. 

However, the report from this frontier state isn’t as rosy as mainland India due to lackadaisical approach and attitude of government and its machineries. Low penetration of this scheme is reflected when biggest banking organisation, State Bank of India (SBI) admits that response is not excellent but is good enough.

‘Though there is no proper data regarding how many accounts have been opened  in Itanagar  or in the state  but people are not much aware of this scheme,’ DK Dutta, Assistant Manager, SBI says.

Besides poor data mining and being clueless, there’s hardly any outreach programme being initiated by the authorities concerned to connect with nearly two lakh girl child in the state. The Census 2011 recorded 1,04,564 (aged between 0-6) girl child in the frontier state.

As per SSY guidelines, the account can be opened by girl’s parents or guardians for girls ten years or less with her birth certificate and identity proof as supporting documents in any authorized bank and post office. The maturity period of the account is 21 years from the date of opening of the account and can be operated by parents or guardians on her behalf until she reaches the age of 18.  Once the girl attains the age of 18 years, she can partially withdraw amounts on account of marriage or higher studies. Minimum Rs. 1,000 can be invested in one financial year and maximum investment is Rs. 1.5 lakh in one financial year. Moreover the SSY is tax exempted and has the highest interest rate of 8.6 percent with transferable facility anywhere in the country.

‘I have only heard about the scheme in the news but never went to open an account for my daughter, ' said a mother of a one year old girl, S Ronya. SSY is really an appreciable and beneficial scheme launched by government, she added.

Deputy Manager of Punjab National Bank, Itanagar Branch, Bhawani Prasad Joshi added SSY is one of the best schemes for girl child, which is exempted from income tax and has highest interest rate of 8.6 percent per annum more than all other existing schemes.

'Whenever customers come for opening a new account for their ward specially girl child of age below 10 years we urge them to go for SSY,' he added while appealing others to join the campaign. 

‘Along with normal account, I also suggest people to go for SSY account that will confer financial assistance to their daughter  for education and on marriage on attaining adulthood,’ stated Pintu Nayak, a bank official of Vijaya Bank, Itanagar.

If Modi’s dream campaign is to be a success, then authorities need to cajole and push the laidback populace; BJP party workers should come forward to drive the authorities.

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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