The Punjab Government has disbursed attendance scholarship of Rs. 27.86 crore to primary girl students in the educational institutions to improve the attendance rate of the girls in the schools.Divulging here today, the SC/BC Welfare Minister Mr. Gulzar Singh Ranike said that this scheme was introduced under State Plan in year 2008-09 for the SCs and BCs besides economically weaker families in the state. “It is a hard fact that the parents/guardians, who belong to economically weaker section mostly are not interested to educate their female child and even after getting admission in a school she is compelled to leave the studies and assist her parents to contribute for family income by performing nominal jobs”, said the Minister. Keeping these circumstances in view the State Government had decided to introduce incentive in the form of Attendance Scholarships to check the dropout tendency among the girl students, the Minister added.
The Minister further said that in year 2014-15, the Punjab Government had provided financial aid of Rs. 15 crore and in year 2015-16, Rs. 9.07 crore was provided to schedule caste primary girl students under attendance scholarship. Besides this, the State Government has also provided scholarship of Rs. 3.02 crore to Backward class and EWS (Economically Weaker Section) in year 2014-15 and Rs. 77 lac in year 2015-16.The Minister said that under this scheme, the monthly attendance scholarship was being provided per student for 10 months in a year . As per eligible criteria, the annual income of the parents/guardians should not exceed Rs.1,00,000 and they do not have more than 5 acre of land. Minimum 75 percent class attendance was required for getting benefit of scholarship, he added. “The girl students, who are alrady taking benefit out of any other scholarship scheme, would not be covered under this scheme”, said the Minister.